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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810556">lover come over (will you leave the light on?)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ev0lution/pseuds/ev0lution'>ev0lution</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, d - Freeform, it's prewar so it's not exactly always lighthearte, lily evans potter believes in JUSTICE and in LOVE, lily-centric, my love letter to november</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:28:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810556</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ev0lution/pseuds/ev0lution</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Evans hasn’t met a battle she wasn’t going to pick. In her seventh year, she makes a new friend, becomes Hogwarts’ most prolific vandal, and falls in love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(if you squint) - Relationship, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. part i</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by my favourite <a href="https://clytemnestrad.tumblr.com/post/162164358714/madelinestarr-lovepadfoot-agunfulloftigers"> headcanon ever </a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The posters appeared overnight. Slathering the walls of Hogwarts like boils, they proclaimed several terrifying things: that a dark lord was coming; that they should prepare for the <em>cleansing</em>; the name of every single muggle-born in the school.</p><p>One by one, those muggle-borns were called to Dumbledore’s office. Lily, a sixth year, was near last, asked to head upstairs during her afternoon class of Transfiguration. As she walked out of the room, eyes followed her from all directions, but Lily only met one set. Snape looked away quickly, as if burned, but Lily didn’t relent, not until she had to. <em>Look at me</em>, she wanted to scream. <em>See what you’ve chosen</em>.</p><p>In Dumbledore’s office, Lily hadn’t known what to expect. But it wasn’t this – quiet, steady, and ultimately, full of empty platitudes.</p><p>“But what are you going to <em>do</em>?” She demanded, once he’s moved gracefully through an anecdote and given her advice that sounded wise but were empty words without action.</p><p>“Everything in my power,” Dumbledore replied, which sounded impressive and intimidating and wasn’t a reply at all.</p><p>Lily had a talent for finding the good in others; it was her own brand of magic, to peer through the grey of someone’s soul and find bright sunshine. But, in those minutes in Dumbledore’s office, she struggled to find it.</p><p>She returned to Transfiguration not fifteen minutes later, the shortest of all of Dumbledore’s meetings yet. This time, when she sat down, she didn’t look at anyone. Instead, she sat down and caught her own reflection in the glass of McGonagall’s window, and posed the question back to herself: <em>what are you going to do</em>?</p><p>:::</p><p>Lily Evans couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t new. Insomnia had found her years ago, when she’d suddenly been called into McGonagall’s office when she was fourteen, where McGonagall held her hand and told her about her father’s heart attack. Lily had felt strangely numb, strangely distant, and wide, wide awake.</p><p>Falling asleep wasn’t the problem. The problem was <em>staying</em> asleep. Lily would find herself suddenly wide awake at one and two in the morning, her mind halfway through a question or memory like she’d never been asleep at all. Her body would be exhausted, but her mind was lit up like a carnival. Sometimes she laid there, waiting for sleep for hours before she had to get up in the morning.</p><p>It tapered off after about a year, reappearing when she was stressed, like during finals or those last few nights before she returned to Hogwarts. It wasn’t a surprise that it was back now, with words like <em>civic duty </em>and <em>cleansing </em>repeating again and again in her head, when slurs that had once been whispered were now shouted, when Lily could feel eyes on her constantly – the eyes of the Slytherins, waiting for her to turn her back; the eyes of her teachers, depending on her for a good example; the eyes of the other Gryffindors, waiting for a fault in her bravery. They were all waiting for her to slip up. They wouldn’t get it – even if Lily had to hide her slip ups in the dark.</p><p>Insomnia once again took Lily by a chokehold in December of 1976, days after the posters and the heartbreaking meeting with her Headmaster. Lily spent a week straight with white eyes in the dark, staring up at the ceiling of her four-poster. She blamed it on upcoming pre-Christmas examinations, on the impending meeting with Tuney and the new boyfriend her mother detailed in her letters; she blamed it on the tension in her dormitory, since their roommate Agnes had started dating Marlene’s ex, who she <em>clearly </em>wasn’t yet over, despite what she said. Lily blamed it on the <em>Marauders</em>, whose sudden, brutal split from one another was more disruptive than any prank. She blamed it on the insistent question that had absorbed her mind for a week: <em>what are you going to do? </em>Anything was better than naming the actual cause. Sometimes giving the monster a shape made it scarier.</p><p>On the fourth night of sleeplessness, she finally snapped, slipping out of bed and grabbing her robes, sneaking out of her dormitory in her socked feet.</p><p>The castle was a different beast at night. In the day, it was full of warm sunlight, jolly chattering portraits, and students spilling everywhere – the wonder of first years, who were just as amazed if they were from Muggle families or could trace their magic for generations; third years, bustling to the doors, full to the brim for excitement for their next Hogsmeade trip, even if it was weeks away; fifth years complaining about their O.W.L.’s, and the sudden increase in exams in their regular classes. In the day, the castle was full of life.</p><p>But at night it was scaly. The wind howled against its thick walls, trying to tear through as it screamed like a banshee. The castle at night was eerie, and it reminded Lily that, in <em>Hogwarts: A History, </em>Bagshot spent time discussing how the land was cleared to fit the castle, and that most of the castle was actually built on land that used to be the Forbidden Forest. It still had roots from that forest, and it showed them at night, when no one was around to see. It collected shadows darker than dark in its corners, and every errant crack in the brick or door’s keyhole seemed to have an eye peeping out of it.</p><p>Hogwarts was beautiful, but it was also a medieval castle – there were dark halls and dungeons and eerie rooms that should’ve been empty but didn’t appear to be. There was a library with cobwebs and mice that skittered along the halls and secrets that folded in one another like the petals of a flower. Hogwarts was beautiful and creepy and huge and home, and she loved all its faces equally.</p><p>As she walked, more than once, she gripped her wand and turned, glaring into the dark. But she only found still suits of armor, or paintings watching her warily, like they were debating on whether to wake a teacher. In those cases, she and the painting would watch each other carefully before she would turn and continue on her way, knowing the painted eyes saw the shiny silver badge on her robes, knowing it didn’t match the old fuzzy pajamas she had beneath.</p><p>Initially, Lily had set course for the Great Hall, imaging herself spreading out on top of the Gryffindor table, looking up into the night sky. But why have an illusion when she could have the real thing? She climbed the winding staircases to the astronomy tower, socked feet whispering on the stone.</p><p>Lily smelled the sharp, acrid cigarettes before she saw him. It was easy to guess who it would be, since few students were stupid enough to willingly breathe poison into their lungs, and fewer would use something created by <em>muggles</em>.</p><p>He was sitting on the balcony, leaned against the doorway and hugging his knees to himself. Lily walked up to him and announced, with no care about the volume, “You, Sirius Black, are a cliché.”</p><p>Sirius didn’t answer. And that was unnerving, because Sirius Black always had a comeback, so full of antic energy. Lily frowned.</p><p>It wasn’t just that – he looked differently. Sirius Black was big – not physically. In fact, he was about her height, and not much broader. But he always <em>seemed </em>bigger than he was, because of his character, and his brashness, and the way he embodied every stereotype of Gryffindor so completely.</p><p>Lily had never seen him look so <em>small</em>. Even at eleven, when he was boney and gangly and still growing into all the parts of him, he hadn’t been like this.</p><p>When he didn’t respond, Lily paused to watch him. She couldn’t fully see his face from where she was, but she could see something wasn’t right, which she’d known already. Something hadn’t been right for a month.</p><p>But Lily was a Gryffindor, too. Instead of leaving, like he so clearly wanted, she took up the space on the opposite doorframe as him, sinking against it. She held out her hand and pretended she didn’t notice the shining tracks on his face, pretended it didn’t scare her more than this night-face of the castle ever could.</p><p>“Well, go on, let me have a drag,” Lily said, a bit more forcefully than someone asking to share a cigarette should be. It was that that made Sirius look at her. A bit incredulous, like she’d asked for a snog. Lily snapped her fingers at him. Apparently realizing he wasn’t going to be left alone, he held out the cigarette wordlessly, staring out into the castle grounds.</p><p>Lily took the cigarette and realized she had absolutely no idea what to do. Place the thing in her mouth, of course, and not the burning end. But that was about as far as she knew. Pinching it awkwardly, Lily put it between her teeth. She accidentally bit down, feeling a strange little crunch and inhaling smoke all at once before she immediately began coughing, eyes watering as she half-choked.</p><p>“Merlin, you’ve got the teeth of a werewolf,” Sirius said, snatching the cigarette out of her hands and seeing the bite mark. She would’ve felt more victorious for getting something out of him if she wasn’t so busy choking on smoke. She fanned her eyes wildly, trying to clear her head of it.</p><p>Sirius said, “Poor first go. Worst I’ve ever seen, I reckon.”</p><p>Lily flipped him off absently, still trying to rid herself from the smoke. Her mouth was dry, somehow, after only one drag. She’d really buggered it.</p><p>“Just as much as a cliché as I am, Evans,” Sirius said, looking at her with something that was almost concern. “Perfect Prefect who’s never smoked before. And in kitten pajamas, no less.”</p><p>“Excuse you,” Lily coughed, taking a deep breath of nighttime air and stretching out her knee, so he could see the fabric of her pajama pants better. “Excuse you, those are puppies.”</p><p>Sirius rolled his eyes (they were tinged red), “My mistake.” Then he looked at her again, as if realizing something. “You shouldn’t be out at night alone, Evans. It’s not safe.”</p><p>Lily rolled her eyes. “I’ve got my wand, and I’m in a much clearer frame of mind than you.”</p><p>Sirius said automatically, “I do my best work when I’m not thinking, actually.” And then he froze. Like snark was something that was forgotten or forbidden. Or what he’d just said was the opposite of true.</p><p>To save him, Lily announced, “I’ve got insomnia. I haven’t slept the last four nights.”</p><p>She looked out into the grounds, at the way the fog curled around everything like a protective ghost, a foot above the layer of snow. It was freezing up there, especially in the open door of the balcony. She pulled her arms out of her sleeves and pulled her robe around her like a blanket. “I thought a walk would do me good.”</p><p>“It’s not safe,” Sirius said, then went quiet. He seemed to be retreating, back into himself, like he was when she found him. Lily wasn’t about to let her hard work go to waste.</p><p>“It started when my dad died,” Lily told him, not particularly caring that she’d elected to keep her insomnia a private thing, a burden she dealt with on her own. Because a new situation had appeared that negated that plan: she could use her own struggle to help someone if she shared it. “We were in – “</p><p>“Fourth year,” Sirius said, cutting her off. He nodded. “I remember. You left for a while in September. Couple days after class started.”</p><p>Lily nodded, gathering the opening of her robes in a fist to hold it shut. “Yeah. He died of a heart attack. It was quite a shock. There had been heart troubles on his family’s side, mind, but that was when my grandfather was in his sixties, not thirties.” She trailed off, remembering. “The house was so quiet. I was ashamed of it then, but I was so glad to come back after that. Come back to the castle, which was full of noise and… normalcy, I think. That improvised musical you lot preformed for Flitwick’s birthday was just after I came back. It was just the distraction I needed.”</p><p>Sirius flinched at the <em>you lot, </em>like she’d wounded him with the word. But he said, almost automatically, “It was James’ idea. He came up with it to cheer you up. I don’t think it was even Flitwick’s birthday.”</p><p>Lily laughed, shaking her head. “It worked. Don’t tell him, though, wouldn’t want his head to get any bigger.” It was instinctual, to slip that dig in. But she saw on Sirius’ face that it was the wrong thing to say; his handsome face lost what little joy she’d rustled up, falling as he inevitably thought of his best mate’s reaction to her words. Lily leaned over and bumped him gently with her shoulder. “Actually, do tell him. Maybe it’s the olive branch you need.”</p><p>“You’ve noticed, have you?”</p><p>“The sudden peace? Yes, I have. And I enjoyed it for a spell, too.” That was a lie. Hogwarts without the chaos of the Marauders was a film without a soundtrack, a library without books. But she wasn’t going to show <em>all</em> her cards.</p><p>She changed the topic back into safer territories. “So that’s when the insomnia started. It comes back when I’m stressed.”</p><p>She didn’t need to tell him why she was stressed now. She was a muggle born, and that was reason enough, without horrible posters appearing overnight with every muggle-born student’s names on them, and a threat about the oncoming <em>cleansing</em>. That word, in particular, was what woke Lily that night. It wouldn’t stop repeating in her head, like a horrible ringing.</p><p>“Not safe for you to be out alone, Evans,” Sirius said again, but it was weaker this time.</p><p>Lily spoke softly. “If there’s <em>anywhere</em> that’s safe for people like me right now, I’d love to hear it.”</p><p>They elapsed into quiet. Lily reflected that mentioning bigots and genocidal maniacs probably wasn’t the way to lighten any kind of conversation. But Lily’s mind had been rattling with fear and anger. It was more real than it had ever been before. She didn’t know what to do with it. But Sirius spoke, abruptly and so full of self-hate that Lily flinched.</p><p>“I fucked up, Evans.”</p><p>She’d gathered that. While she felt a knot twist in sympathy in her stomach, she wasn’t surprised. Sirius was always dancing on the cliff’s edge between funny and cruel, and often fell down it. He was bound to trip up badly enough to anger even his friends eventually. That was what the Siriuses of the world were like: they always had to go too far before they learned.</p><p>“Sometimes it takes losing things to realize what you had, Evans,” Sirius blurted. Lily considered him.</p><p>“That’s strangely wise, Sirius.”</p><p>“I’m not all good looks.” His heart wasn’t in it. It came out flat.</p><p>“The others are very angry with you,” Lily agreed, nodding, and speaking very, very carefully. She was glad Sirius had put out his cigarette. The clear air made it easier to find her words. “And you’re afraid they’ll never stop being angry.”</p><p>“Who’s being wise now, Evans?”</p><p>“I’ve always been wise,” she said primly. “It’s not surprising.” It didn’t tease even a half-smile out of him. Lily readjusted her tactic. “Well, if you want to know if they’ll forgive you, you need to ask a hard question.”</p><p>Sirius sighed, finally looking over at her, “What is it, then?”</p><p>“Does their anger over this,” Lily asked, “Outweigh their love for you?”</p><p>“Didn’t realize I was reading a bloody self-help novel,” Sirius mumbled, which was as good enough of an answer in the positive.</p><p>“It doesn’t. Their anger doesn’t outweigh their love,” Lily said with certainty.</p><p>“You don’t know what I’ve done, Evans.”</p><p>“No,” Lily chose her words carefully again. “But I know how much you four love one another. You’re full of it, you know, the four of you. Love, not shit. Actually, that too, but mostly love.” It earned her a sharp exhale from Sirius, an almost-laugh. She took it as encouragement. “Potter… he gets under my skin like no one else. And he’s an absolute pompous prat, and some days I wish I could dunk him in the lake. Other days, I <em>try</em>. I’m saying all this so you know I’m honest. Because Potter and I haven’t seen eye to eye often, but if I know one thing about him, it’s that James <em>Potter</em> doesn’t give up on his friends. Never. It may be the only thing I like about him.”</p><p>(That last bit was a lie, but that wasn’t something to pick at, right now).</p><p>“What if,” Sirius paused, swallowed, and kept going, “What if forgiving me would mean giving up on another one of us?”</p><p>Lily’s mind jumped to the others – Remus or Peter. Sirius had done something to one of them. And Remus had looked so exhausted since November, more withdrawn than before. Like he was petrified that if he touched anyone, he would cause them harm.</p><p>“Impossible,” Lily shook her head. “That sounds like a rule. And James Potter has never obeyed a rule in his life.” Sirius didn’t look convinced. Lily said, softly, “James and Remus,” the slightest of beats, and Lily watched him flinch, confirming her suspicion, “And Peter love you. So much. You’ve got to have faith in that.”</p><p>Sirius snorted. “<em>Why</em>?”</p><p>Lily knew his sharpness wasn’t for her. She didn’t take it personally. She said, gently, “Because love is going to be what saves us in the end, Sirius. From fights with our friends, and – and broken relationships.” Somewhere in that castle, Sev was asleep. Her sister was too, across the country. “And this whole war and all the hatred out there – love is what’s going to save us in the end.”</p><p>Sirius had watched her the whole time she spoke. His eyes were so grey they were almost black, and his focus had been so intense that she’d almost looked away from him. Finally, he stood.</p><p>“Alright, Evans,” he said, “Let’s get you back to the common room. I’ll walk you.”</p><p>Lily watched him for a moment. He still seemed small and drawn in on himself. His cheeks were still wet. But there was something about him that was different than before. She thought maybe it was hope.</p><p>Lily took the hand he offered her and let him haul her up. Then she let him walk her back to the common room without protest. Because she knew it wasn’t for her benefit. She knew what it was like to be alone, and to need someone next to you to be a little braver.</p><p>:::</p><p>It was clear to Lily that she could be extremely helpful in this situation, and helping the Marauders seemed far more attainable than her other question, the one that beat along inside her night and day (<em>what are you going to do what are you going to do what are you going to </em>do).</p><p>Anyone with eyes could see something had happened between the Marauders, who suddenly and brutally split, wound tenser than the loin cloths that desperately clung to trolls. Whatever had happened, it had left James in a month of detentions, Sirius in four different fist fights, and Remus without sleep for about two months.</p><p>She’d seen them alone a lot since then, though the fracture shattered around Sirius specifically. Sirius hadn’t gone to meals for a full month. She had it on good authority he was eating in the kitchens and, judging by the way he was so seldom in the tower, she guessed he wasn’t sleeping there, either.</p><p>Lily sometimes wanted to throttle the lot of them for the shenanigans they got up to, but seeing them like that had been worse, like watching a blinded animal grope around in the dark. Whatever quarrel it was, Lily was certain they would recover. The Marauders could survive anything, including a civil war.</p><p>They just needed a little… <em>push</em>. Luckily, Lily was an excellent pusher. She decided to target the one she deemed most vulnerable, and set a trap built for him.</p><p>“Evans?”</p><p>Lily peered innocently around the pile of books she’d been touting around for twenty minutes, wandering the front hall and waiting for Quidditch practice to end. Of course, as captain, Potter had probably swanned around on the pitch, getting the balls away, cleaning up after his team, and she’d forgotten to factor it in. Her arms were burning.</p><p>“Potter,” Lily returned, turning deliberately away from him.</p><p>“Why have you stolen the library and brought it down here?” He sounded amused, as he often did. He also smelled atrocious, which he often didn’t, still in his muddy Quidditch robes.</p><p>“Borrowed them,” Lily said, playing up her struggle a little, “From Professor Slughorn.” She purposefully teetered the books a little and Potter snapped out to take them, hauling them into his arms rather than using a spell, because Lily was fairly certain they added <em>chivalry</em> to the Gryffindor description because of the sheer, <em>ridiculous</em> amount of it that James Potter possessed.</p><p>“Thank you,” Lily said, smiling in relief she didn’t have to fake, because she’d been teetering around with those books for twice as long as she’d expected.</p><p>“You headed up to the Common Room?” Potter asked, and Lily nodded. They started up the stairs and Lily tried to remember the speech she’d very carefully rehearsed with Mary. Then she completely bungled it.</p><p>“So what in the hell is happening with you and Sirius and why haven’t you fixed it yet?”</p><p>In retrospect, she probably should’ve waited for him to reach a landing, at least, and not ask him in the middle of the stair. Potter stumbled and dropped her books everywhere, so they slid across the landing behind them, some even tipping down the stairs before it. Lily watched <em>Modern Medical Potions</em> slip down the stairs back towards the front hall, then looked up at Potter, who was looking at her with such – disbelief but also indignation, like he absolutely couldn’t believe what she’d just said, and was completely annoyed at himself for not seeing it coming.</p><p>Lily met his eye. “<em>Well</em>?”</p><p>“Lily,” he said, startling her so much with the use of her first name that her mouth, half-open, snapped shut. “Stay out of it.”</p><p>Then she <em>did </em>open her mouth again, gaping at him like a fish. “Stay - ?!” She blinked quickly at him, torn, like him, between disbelief and indignation. “Well, I <em>would </em>if you hadn’t involved the whole bloody house in your spats – I mean, Sirius switched out of his classes! He sleeps in the Common Room! He doesn’t come to meals, and I’ve no idea what he’s going to do at Christmas, you know how awful his family is – “</p><p>“Then we know where he gets it from,” Potter said firmly, cutting her off. Lily blinked at him. That was <em>cruel</em>. Cruelty hadn’t been common for Potter since Fifth, when he’d finally learned his lesson. Or so she’d thought.</p><p>Lily had always thought Potter could rival any Hufflepuff for his loyalty. And he <em>listened </em>to her, even if he was a prat about it. But this was unheard of.</p><p>She changed tactics, “James,” she said, because <em>two </em>could play at the manipulative-use-of-the-first-name-game, “You’ve loved him as a brother all this years – surely he couldn’t have done something so terrible – “</p><p>“<em>Evans</em>,” Potter snapped, looking angrier than she’d seen in her life. Angrier than when he would lose a Quidditch match, and shoulder all the blame. Angrier than when Snape called her that terrible name, and he’d nearly drowned him for it. “You’ve no idea what happened. Stay out of it.”</p><p>Lily had her next plea ready – <em>then help me understand!</em> – but Potter had turned and stomped away, leaving her with her books laid in every direction on the stairs. Her anger deflated in a moment. Another book, teetering on the edge, lost its balance and slid down, clunking heavily out of reach. Lily began to feel she might’ve deserved it.</p><p>:::</p><p>When she put her ill-fated plan into action, what in the world was she thinking?</p><p><em>This</em>:</p><p>The beginning of Lily’s sixth year had been quiet, and it took her a week before she realized what she was waiting for. The Marauders, led by Potter, hadn’t burst into her compartment on the train, they hadn’t wedged themselves next to Lily and her friends at the Gryffindor table, they hadn’t sat directly behind her in class, as they had every year. Lily didn’t see them until the welcome feast, where they sat with a block of seventh and fifth years between them. And – for all their mistakes, Lily felt left out of an inside joke she’d been in on previously. So she abused her Prefect powers and cornered Potter in detention.</p><p>The Marauder had been assigned to scrub the Potions classroom with his friends over one prank or another, and everyone knew Slughorn never supervised his own detentions. She’d nabbed him and dragged him into the hall, ignoring the looks of his friends, and the squeak that came from Peter.</p><p>“Please stop pretending I don’t exist,” she said, her hand still curled around the wrist she’d grabbed and used to haul Potter off to hall. Potter was looking at it and continued looking at it when he responded.</p><p>“I thought – after exams – you wanted me to stay away from you,” Potter’s voice was quiet, and not very Potter-like at all.</p><p>Merlin, she <em>hated</em> how the <em>memory</em> made her eyes tear up, how Sev’s disappearance still felt like a hole in her heart, how angry she was at him and at those <em>boys </em>pretending to be men, and shoving her in the crossfire –</p><p>“I want you to stop asking me out in front of the whole school,” Lily said, “Like it’s some big show, like it’s <em>hilarious</em> to ask <em>me</em> out, because I’m – me – “</p><p>Potter’s head snapped up, “That’s not what I – “</p><p>“It’s how I felt,” she cut him off, “I want you to treat me as a human being, okay? That’s all I wanted from any of you,” she sighed, and said, a bit lightly, “And not like an arrogant toerag would.”</p><p>“Arrogant, bullying toerag,” Potter corrected her. But then he smiled, a bit tentatively, “Deal, Evans.” She realized she was still holding his wrist and released it abruptly, leaving them standing awkwardly in the hall, tentative and hopeful.</p><p>So – she knew James Potter had some <em>sense</em>. But, standing on that landing, she realized <em>she</em> was the one without it.</p><p>:::</p><p>Christmas was a break she needed.</p><p>Stepping back into the muggle world was like spending months running to finally stop and take a breath. There were no posters there, no threats written on the walls of her home. No foreboding messages from the <em>Daily Prophet</em>, which she shoved, guiltily, under her mattress without reading it, and told herself it was to protect her oblivious mother. No disappointed, angry eyes from James Potter, which had burned into her when she ran into him on the train and tried to apologize.</p><p>She was used to her moral high ground. She didn’t like losing it.</p><p>Christmas was quiet, with just her and her mother. Petunia and her boyfriend were spending the holidays with his family, leaving their house large and oddly empty. Lily sent gifts to her friends, all stubbornly muggle: a curling iron for Mary, a novel without any moving pictures for Marlene. She picked one out for Potter, too, in lieu of the apology he refused to accept. It was a lovely puzzle she’d found in a Muggle bookshop, of a Muggle telephone box.</p><p>But she was still <em>Lily, </em>and she couldn’t help herself. She actually sent him a <em>quarter</em> of a Christmas gift. She sent the other three quarters to Remus, Sirius, and Peter, twenty-five pieces each.</p><p>Lily received a rather amusing cartoon from Sirius in return; a rather strange Christmas card from Peter, obviously bought in haste in response to her gift; a lovely and confused note from Remus; and a surprisingly charming book from Potter of wizarding fairy tales, with an inscription that read: <em>You’re a git, Evans. A right git</em>.</p><p>When she returned to Hogwarts, however, braced for viciousness, she found the puzzle left, completed, on her four-poster. It made her release a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.</p><p>The rest of the castle released the same breath a day later, when classes resumed, and students discovered that every classroom door in the castle had been enchanted to sing a horrible, personalized showtune for whoever walked through it. Even though the songs had been terrible, and it took the professors a week to sort out a reversal, there was a new ease in the castle, like the students, who had been tiptoeing for months, could finally walk normally again.</p><p>Lily cornered Potter at the breakfast table a week into term, sitting across from him at the table and deliberately pouring herself a cup of tea before she looked at him, and smiled. “A <em>right</em> git, huh?”</p><p>Potter continued to pretend to read a letter, but he smiled suddenly at the paper, like he was caught in the act of something.</p><p>:::</p><p><em>What are you going to do</em>?</p><p>It rolled through her mind in lessons, kept her up at night. <em>What are you going to do</em>?</p><p>She was starting to get an idea.</p><p>Lily brought every muggle book she owned, had her mother send her muggle newspapers, and read them for hours in the Great Hall, left them lying on classroom desks and in the halls. She clicked muggle pens endlessly in lessons, stuffed them into her hair. She charmed a record player into working on the grounds and played muggle bands in every public area she could think of. She did it all and made eye contact with every blood purist she could think of, rubbing in their faces just how <em>muggle </em>she was, and how very <em>proud</em>. Her existence was what upset them, so she would rub it in their faces at every chance. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to do more. She was <em>going </em>to do more.</p><p>:::</p><p>In March, Lily Evans walked up to the burly seventh-year Amycus Carrow and punched him so hard across the face, the sound of her bones hitting his skin startled her a little.</p><p>And then Remus was beside her, hauling her out of the way of Carrow’s sister’s spell, and Potter was stunning Alecto, and Peter cast a spell that hit a wall but came <em>very </em>close to Amycus. And Sirius, he was whooping, gleefully hexing nearby Dolohov in the face.</p><p>It was the first fist fight Lily had ever been in and it was for a good reason. Just hours earlier, Amycus Carrow had hexed a first year with such a brutal charm that Lily had found her bleeding and sobbing in the girls’ loos. And once Lily had taken her to the hospital wing, she’d turned on her heel and, in her bloody shirt, punched Amycus Carrow across the face. And it had felt <em>good</em>.</p><p>They were still hauled off to Dumbledore’s office, however.</p><p>Lily had been to his office once before, when he’d called all muggle-borns individually into his office to speak with them about horrible posters that had appeared overnight, their faces on each of them. She hadn’t been able to appreciate the office, then, too angry and broiling and, yes, <em>scared</em>, to really see it.</p><p>She cradled her wrist in her lap (it was swelling twice the size of her other one) while she looked at each painting in turn. One clad in all scarlet and gold had laughed when Remus informed him why they were there and congratulated them on <em>showing those bigots who’s boss</em>.</p><p>“Jam up your wrist?” Remus asked, leaning over. He spoke in a hushed tone, though Dumbledore hadn’t yet arrived. They were lined up in front of his desk, awaiting judgement, while the Slytherins were guarded by McGonagall below.</p><p>Lily nodded. “I’ve never thrown a proper punch, I’m afraid.”</p><p>“What happened to love, Evans?” Sirius asked, leaning forward to speak around Remus.</p><p>“Oh, lick my ass, Black,” Lily said, though she was smiling.</p><p>“Here,” Remus said, holding his wand out in one hand, his other one open to her. She reached her arm towards him and he tapped his wand gently against her bone, muttering something. Immediate relief made her sigh, watching the swelling go down. “This spell has come in handy. Sirius didn’t learn how to throw a proper punch until fourth, I reckon.”</p><p>“Oi,” Sirius said, offended, but draping himself across Remus’ shoulder like a rather annoying scarf. “I’m the best puncher of us all.”</p><p>“Is puncher a word, I wonder,” Peter asked, on the far end.</p><p>“You’re looking for boxer,” Potter supplied helpfully.</p><p>Remus shook his head, “But is Sirius really the best <em>boxer</em>? I don’t believe he knows how to duck, and that’s important in boxing.”</p><p>“Oi,” Sirius said, still draped all over Remus, “Who made you the expert on punchers?”</p><p>Remus shrugged, “<em>One </em>of us must be, and it’s certainly not <em>you</em>.” Sirius smiled wolfishly, like Remus was every inside joke he’d ever treasured. These boys were an absolute circus act.</p><p>Potter leaned forward then, nearly folded in half to see around his other friends, “Why hit him when you could’ve hexed him? We all know you could’ve cursed him into next week.”</p><p>Lily leaned forward too, meeting him in the middle, “I wanted to do it the muggle way. I thought it would be far more satisfying.”</p><p>Potter was grinning. “Was it?”</p><p>Lily smiled in return.</p><p>And then a voice cleared itself behind them and they all sat straight, staring ahead. Lily wasn’t sorry, though. Not with that kid’s blood still on her shirt.</p><p>:::</p><p>Lily Evans was an insomniac. She never had trouble falling asleep, but it was staying asleep that was the problem. It was hard to be awake so late, when it was easier for fears to creep in, for insecurities to sneak up on you. It was easier to feel tragedy late at night. Loneliness lived there, too.</p><p>After an hour of staring at the curtains of her four-poster, she gathered her comforter around her shoulders and trudged down the stairs, careful not to trip. Lily plunked herself down in front of the fire, which always seemed to be burning cheerily and comfortingly. She thought of her Amortentia and wondered if this was the fire she smelled, and it wasn’t about her family, after all. She couldn’t imagine the Gryffindor common room with a cold hearth.</p><p>Because it was late and there was no one to talk her out of it, she found herself wondering the impossible. What if Severus hadn’t done <em>that</em>? What if he’d never called her <em>that</em>?</p><p>She pushed it further, since that was a question she’d asked so much it’d become stale. What if Sev had never been sorted into Slytherin? Sev had spent years lamenting the fact that Lily was a Gryffindor. What if Sev had been Ravenclaw or Gryffindor? (Even in her fantasy, she couldn’t sort him into Hufflepuff – his loyalty was too far broken, too easily shattered).</p><p>What if he’d seen the Marauders as allies, rather than his antagonists? But that image was too hard to imagine – impossible, really, just as impossible as sorting Snape into Hufflepuff. They were too fundamentally different. For all the Marauders’ immaturity and, yes, they’d been bullies, rotten ones, all through their earlier years at Hogwarts – they’d grown out of it. They’d learned they were causing harm.</p><p>But – she was thinking about Severus.</p><p>Deep in her gut, Lily knew no matter where he’d been placed, Sev would’ve done this. You don’t become hateful purely due to your friends. You find that well of hate and decide to use it, to act on it, rather than trying to dismantle it. There were other Slytherins, Slytherins who weren’t like Mulciber or the Carrows or Malfoy that Sev could’ve befriended. But he chose not to. <em>Severus</em> made the decision to hate; <em>Severus</em> chose to hurt others and make them feel small, because he wanted to be big and scary and the best however he could and – oh. She was crying.</p><p>Sobbing, actually. When had that started? Wrapped in her comforter in front of the common room fire, Lily sobbed a bit uncontrollably, grieving Sev in a way she hadn’t let herself before. The Sev she knew – the one who told her she was magic, the one who’d been neglected by his own parents, the one who taught her how to skip rocks and the one who used to be afraid of the dark – that Sev was gone. Because he’d chosen that. He’d chosen power and hate over her.</p><p>Lily took a deep breath and counted to ten. She pulled her blanket more tightly around herself. She counted again, tripping up on the numbers when another sob eked out. She traced the edges of the embers with her eyes. She didn’t even notice the portrait hole open.</p><p>“Lily?”</p><p>It was Mary. Sweet, lovely, Muggle-born Mary. Mary, who had gone out to spend the evening with her boyfriend, Reggie. Reggie, who walked her back to the portrait hole after every one of their dates, because Mary was a Muggle-born, and she had been cornered before, in this very castle. Reggie, who didn’t care that Mary was a Muggle-born. Who even found it to be lovely, who tried his best and asked clumsy questions about television programmes and record players and knew all of Mary’s non-magical sisters.</p><p>Why wouldn’t have Sev been more like that?</p><p>“How was your date?” Lily tried to ask in as normal a voice as possible, but it broke halfway through, because Reggie had written to Mary’s favourite Muggle bakery for her birthday cake, and he’d nearly given the owner a heart attack by using an owl, so he’d had to ask Lily for help.</p><p>“Oh, Lily,” Mary was across the room in a moment, sinking down next to her after muttering a quick spell. A whispy blue bird flew from them, up into the girls’ dorms. “My date was lovely, thank you. But what’s happened with you, love?”</p><p>Lily sniffed, dragged her palms across her teary eyes, “Sev.”</p><p>Mary made a sympathetic noise, pressing Lily’s hair back, behind her ear. Just then, Marlene arrived, with a ferocious bedhead and her wand in her hand. She took one look at Lily and said, “Who’s done this? I’ll hex them into next century.”</p><p>Mary made a face at Marlene. Lily kept her eyes on the fire but was aware of the way the two girls were looking at each other, having a silent conversation over her head. Mary was probably trying to talk Marlene down from assault. Marleen was probably trying to negotiate up to homicide. When Marlene let out a heavy sigh, Lily knew who’d won.</p><p>“Budge over, then,” Marlene said, dropping beside Lily. “And give me some of the blanket,” she wormed her way beneath it with Lily.</p><p>“Oh, me too.”</p><p>With some shuffling, Lily found her blanket cocoon had gained two members, wrapped around her in turn. They sat there for a long time, talking quietly, curled all around each other.</p><p>Eventually, near dawn, they pulled her up into the dorm, still gathering around her protectively. It was like they had read some kind of girl-handbook that Lily had missed out on (bitterly, she thought it was because she’d been wasting her time with Snape). They knew the best things for this: chocolate; tears and hair petting; swearing, when they were done with the tears; holding each other close and talking and talking and talking.</p><p>“Why am I like this?” Lily blurred, tears streaming. “He clearly hates who I am. Why can’t I do the same?”</p><p>“Because you’re kind,” Mary said.</p><p>“<em>Too</em> kind.”</p><p>“<em>Marlene</em>.”</p><p>“Am I wrong?”</p><p>“Yes!” Mary shot Marlene a glare then returned to Lily, “Lily, your heart is so big and so full. Don’t question that. What is it you’re always saying about love?”</p><p>She clearly hadn’t forgotten it; she just wanted Lily to say it herself.</p><p>“It’s going to be what saves us, in the end.”</p><p>“And you’re right. Love is going to save us in the end.”</p><p>:::</p><p>More posters appeared overnight, a week before exams.</p><p>Lily was awake when McGonagall arrived in her dormitory, gesturing her down. Remus was waiting at the bottom, looking drawn and older than Lily had ever seen him.</p><p>McGonagall gave very sharp, severe instructions. As Prefects, they were tasked with searching the fourth and fifth floors for more, with the other Prefects doing the same on other levels. If they found more, they were to notify the paintings, who would find the nearest teacher. Teachers were performing their own sweeps of the castle, but they weren’t looking for posters.</p><p>Lily and Remus hurried to their task immediately, both with their wands drawn. Lily found herself unafraid.</p><p>“Who do you think it is?” Remus asked suddenly, calling Lily’s attention. He looked at her and gave her his little half-smile. “I know you must have a theory.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Lily said honestly, “It could be any of them. Snyde. Maybe Crabbe.”</p><p>“You think Crabbe is smart enough?” Remus asked.</p><p>“Rookwood,” Lily said, “Maybe Goyle.”</p><p>“Goyle’s not smart enough,” Remus said, after a moment. “Rookwood, though. He seems like the kind of coward to hang posters in the dead of night.”</p><p><em>We’ll find out</em>, Lily promised herself. She <em>hoped</em> they would come across some posters. She wanted to see them with her own eyes. She wanted to rip them down with her own hands.</p><p>They finished up the fifth floor and continued to the fourth. Lily had higher hopes for the fourth floor, however, since the vandal had struck there last time.</p><p>As they turned the corner towards the girls’ toilets, Lily raised her wand at the ready, biting her lip – and was not disappointed. She <em>was</em> horrified.</p><p>Posters covered the entire wall this time, and this time they weren’t just names. They were photographs, which set the wall in a flurry of movement, as the subjects laughed or blinked or sighed. Lily spotted her own face, laughing as her hair tumbled behind her. Written over the lot of it, in shining, messy paint, were the words <em>MUDBLOODS BEWARE</em>. Her photo was nearly in the dead center, an “O” in “Mudblood” circling her face deliberately.</p><p>Beside her, Remus swore. But Lily barely heard him. She was looking straight at her own photo, drips of green cutting across her face as she sat back and laughed again. Instinctively, she tried to place it – when had she been wearing her hair like that, when had she laughed like that? Yesterday? Last week? Who had taken the photo? How had they developed it in secret?</p><p>Somehow, the photo felt like a worse violation. She knew what they were calling her. She knew what they wanted to do to people like her. But the fact that they’d taken a photo of her completely without her knowledge... The fear twisted into anger and righteousness and a deep thirst for justice.</p><p>“Lily,” Remus’ voice was soft, and kind of far away. She squeezed her eyes shut and open again, then turned to him. He was reaching for her free hand and took it, “Lily,” he said carefully, his voice oddly far away. He knew her too well, because her question was reflected back at her in his eyes. It wasn’t a challenge. It was concerned.</p><p>
  <em>What are you going to do?</em>
</p><p>:::</p><p>Lily entered Potions late deliberately the next day, so that when she walked in, everyone looked away from their cauldrons and to the large, creaking door. Lily’s orange bell bottoms swished around her ankles, her top showing off a creamy strip of stomach and advertising a muggle band. She kept her chin up and said, “Sorry for my tardiness, Professor.”</p><p>A bright spot in the collection of dark robes, Lily made her way to her seat beside Remus. Remus was smiling wryly when she sat down.</p><p>“You look lovely, Lily,” he said. Lily smiled back at him.</p><p>“Thank you, Remus.”</p><p>She looked to the other side of the room, where the Slytherins had sat on the opposite side, separated from them by an invisible border. Snape was staring resolutely at his potion but Mulciber, beside him, was glaring. Lily winked at him, then turned to her cauldron, getting to work.</p><p>In her mind, the question was still repeating itself, over and over again, because <em>this</em> – it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t <em>enough</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. part ii</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lily Evans is the kind of person you want on your side in a bar fight.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lily spent the summer rediscovering her love of reading. She burned through fiction, absorbed poetry, and read half a book on World War Two before she had to put it down. Its beginning was starting to feel familiar. But there was this one book she couldn’t put down, about the Student Strike of 1970, whose slogan – <em>dare to struggle, dare to win</em> – got caught in her head.</p>
<p>She’d spent the summer previous hiding in her backyard, avoiding the corner store and the swings at Spinner’s End. The memory of the lake was still raw – all that hurt, and all those <em>witnesses </em>to that hurt…Lily had spent her summer trying not to be seen. She had kept the curtains drawn against the doorbell, which had rang and rang and rang and rang, until she started to hear it in her sleep. She grew sunflowers so tall that no one could see her. No one could try.</p>
<p>This summer, Lily read boldly on her porch, she walked <em>everywhere</em> – the corner door, the grocer’s, the ice cream shop. She refused to hide anymore. </p>
<p>Not that it mattered, when it came to Snape. His home remained empty of him all summer. On a chance encounter with his mother, she’d told Lily he hadn’t come back from the train; he was spending the summer with a friend in London. The next day, she’d read in the <em>Prophet</em> that Death Eaters had invaded a home in Dartford, and she’d felt an unease in her stomach that returned anytime she passed the narrowest house on Spinner’s End.</p>
<p>Though her house was usually empty, Lily was not alone. She had a letter from Mary every week, and one from Marlene every two. She also had a penpal at Beauxbatons, from a program set up in first year, a girl who wrote to her about books and all the trouble she got herself into. Lily had once allowed herself an absent crush on her to keep her mind off the other things, had once read and reread the letters with the giddy energy of a schoolgirl crush. But she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and absent crushes weren’t enough.</p>
<p>Halfway through the summer, she received a letter from an unfamiliar Tawny owl, with a very brief message and no signature.</p>
<p>
  <em>Settle a bet: who’s handsomer, me or Padfoot? Moony and Wormtail refuse to participate.</em>
</p>
<p>She’d replied, <em>That’s like being given the choice between Slughorn and Binns. I’d choose McGonagall.</em></p>
<p>James had replied, <em>I sincerely hope I’m Slughorn, as I’m very much alive.</em></p>
<p>And Sirius had written back in trainwreck scribbles Lily assumed were supposed to be words. She finally deciphered it as, <em>keep your paws off minnie she’s mine!!!!!</em></p>
<p>It was the start to the strangest correspondence that Lily ever had.</p>
<p>She received a letter every week containing a new anecdote or a random question, and never a signature. Their voices rang through their writing style so surely she never needed it. Peter’s letters were careful, and, about halfway through the summer, the charm on his spell-checking quill began to wear off, and she was left with drooping, confused sentences. Remus’ letters were lovely, well-written, and had some kind of organization to them, which the others lacked. Sirius’ were words just as often as pictures, drawn or taken, and there was usually some kind of obscenity involved. Sometimes they were accompanied by snarky translations from Remus. Potter’s work was abrupt and full of laughter and always made her smile.</p>
<p>Tuney had moved out by the time Lily returned from school. Lily was certain it’d been planned that way, and it made her heart ache. She wished it hadn’t been, but she also knew that every interaction they’d had in the last half-decade had ended in a fight. Still, Lily had the strangest urge to show her these letters and pictures, a remnant of the times when she would come home from Muggle school and tell Tuney every detail of her day, trailing after her big sister chattering in the way little sisters were wont to do. But the room across the hall was empty and the phone number on the fridge hard to dial. Lily never managed to get through the first three numbers before she hung it up again.</p>
<p>Instead, each morning, Lily tiptoed to her room across the hall, like she did when they were little. Petunia’s walls were pastel pink and blemish free (Petunia didn’t like to hang decorations or artwork, which she claimed was nothing more than clutter). It made the room feel bigger, somehow, and it made Petunia feel even farther away.</p>
<p>The carpet was soft beneath Lily’s bare feet. She curled her toes into it and thought of how she used to do that when they were little, how she had made that scuff mark on the wall falling against it when she was six. Lily tiptoed into her room every morning, just like when they were little, except Petunia wasn’t there anymore. Just like when they were older, when Petunia wasn’t there anymore, even when she was. She hadn’t been, not really, since they were little.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Her final return to Hogwarts was bittersweet.</p>
<p>It was the final time she’d run through the barrier as a student, the last time she’d experience the last-minute hustle of the platform. Worst of all, Lily couldn’t stop thinking about how, on this day seven years ago, their car had been jam-packed, with both her parents and Tuney and Sev and her all mushed in the old Aston Martin. Now it felt empty, with just her and her mother. Her question took up all the extra room, pressing in on her like a physical presence.</p>
<p>On the platform, she hugged her mother tighter and longer than usual. She was getting older; Lily hoped Petunia would step up, check in on her often. Lily’s mother was all alone in that big house and, for the first time, Lily felt responsible for it.</p>
<p>When she let go, her mother looked her in the face. Suddenly, Lily knew that no amount of secrecy could keep her mother from knowing that something was happening. All her care to hide it didn’t matter; her mother was a step up from a legilimens.</p>
<p>“Stay safe,” her mother said, then, with a stubborn twist of her mouth, “You stick it to those bastards. Whoever they are.”</p>
<p>Lily smiled abruptly. Her mum would’ve been a Gryffindor, for sure.</p>
<p>When Lily turned, she was nearly run over by a speeding trolley, and wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see its drivers. Remus was sitting on top of the trunks and Sirius was steering, jumping on the back and riding it, hollering with delight.</p>
<p>Just as they were about to crash, she heard Remus shout, “Aresto momentum!”</p>
<p>The trolley slowed, like it was moving through water, and it lightly tapped the wall of the platform.</p>
<p>Both boys were laughing when the platform wizard reached them, arms crossed. Sirius, sprawled on the floor, was saying, “I forgot how to stop running. It could’ve happened to anyone.”</p>
<p>“I believe him,” Remus was saying, laughter still evident in his flushed cheeks, “There’s only so much you can remember when you only have a few braincells to rub together.” Sirius rubbed his fingers together, as if to demonstrate what Remus was saying.</p>
<p>The platform guard gave up on them and Lily approached, shaking her head. “Are you going to make it to school without breaking a bone, or should I get Pomfrey on standby?”</p>
<p>Remus and Sirius exchanged a faux-serious look, laughter on every edge.</p>
<p>“Standby is the best call, I reckon,” Sirius said. Lily rolled her eyes and helped Remus up, who gave her a warm hug.</p>
<p>“How was the end of your summer, Lily?” Remus asked while Sirius ambled up beside him and nudged him aside so he could hug Lily too.</p>
<p>“Another moment in that house and I was going to do my head in,” Lily told him honestly, once she’d pulled away from Sirius. “It was far too quiet.”</p>
<p>Sirius strung an arm across her shoulders and promised, “Won’t be the case that Hoggy-Warty Hogwarts. Especially this year.”</p>
<p>Then Remus was fixing him with a look that <em>clearly </em>said, <em>we talked about this</em>. And Sirius was smiling in a way that said, <em>I can’t help myself. </em>Remus grabbed Sirius by the collar and hauled him away. “Best get a compartment! See you, Lily!”</p>
<p>“Wait, Remus,” Lily called, watching him reluctantly turn back. “Are you Head Boy?”</p>
<p>Remus smiled somewhat ruefully and Lily’s heart fell. But Sirius was grinning. “Not me, I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>Lily watched them scurry away and narrowed her eyes. They were up to something. But since the Marauders were always up to something, it was easier to dismiss, dragging her trunk behind her and heading for the train.</p>
<p>Mary and Marlene had managed to secure an empty compartment near the front of the train. They were giggling when she entered, devouring a fresh secret, eyes wide as saucers when they saw her.</p>
<p>“Did you <em>hear</em>?” Mary started, cut off by Marlene.</p>
<p>“You’ll <em>never </em>believe who Head Boy is.”</p>
<p>Despite their giggly demeanor, Lily’s stomach plummeted. She thought of the boy whose grades had rivalled hers throughout school, who matched up to her in all their subjects, who might be seen as winnable, still, despite her knowledge of his complete lack of redeeming qualities –</p>
<p>“<em>James Potter</em>,” Mary said, like she was dropping the biggest bombshell in the world. But all Lily felt was relief, overwhelming and confusing, since it was <em>James Potter</em>, and when had they stopped being mortal enemies? Fifth year Lily would be appalled.</p>
<p>She couldn’t find words, which seemed to be a desirable reaction, considering how quickly Mary began to recount the trail of gossip she’d followed to retrieve this information (<em>Amos </em>told <em>Lula </em>who told <em>Robin</em> who told <em>Cormoran</em> - ) but Lily quickly lost her. She was torn between what she felt she was <em>supposed </em>to say and what she <em>wanted </em>to say. It wasn’t easy to shake off five years of intolerance, especially after she’d nurtured and fed it so deliberately.</p>
<p>Lily decided to go with honesty, which seemed neutral enough. “I thought it would be Remus,” she said, “And I was scared it would be Snape.”</p>
<p><em>That </em>set off a new spiral from Mary’s mouth, as Mary insisted that Dumbledore wasn’t daft, he wouldn’t pick a git like Snape. Marlene managed to wedge herself into the conversation and argued that Dumbledore was <em>exactly </em>that daft.</p>
<p>“Remember what he said to you and Lily last year?” Marlene asked. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s taking this seriously. It’s been a long time since Grindelwald. Maybe he’s not even sure where to start with You-Know-Who.”</p>
<p>“Say his name,” Lily said, “Voldemort. I’m afraid of him, too, but we can’t bend so easily.”</p>
<p>A prominent ministry witch had been found dead the day before. Muggle born, she was the head of office of Muggle relations. The Dark Mark had been left above her home, a symbol that was decorating the front of the <em>Prophet </em>at a nearly weekly basis.</p>
<p> And there it was again. It was getting bigger and bigger, bigger than stupid posters and graffiti. The question beat along with her head, <em>what are you going to do, what are you going to do, what are you going to do – </em></p>
<p>Lily was relieved when it was time to go to the Heads’ compartment, even though Mary and Marlene had moved on to fluffier topics. They talked about the year’s booklist and their last days of summer and the new flavours at Florean’s – and, Lily was sure, Heads and boys and Lily the moment she left the compartment. It made her smile. It felt like remembering something she’d thought she’d left behind.</p>
<p>Lily slowly made her way to the front of the train, where the Heads compartment was. She hadn’t yet changed out of her muggle clothes, but she’d pinned her shiny new badge to the front of her knitted jumper. There was one compartment with every blind drawn. She could hear quiet murmuring coming from within, the same kind of hush that ebbed out of Knockturn Alley like the fog. Lily consciously slowed her gait as she walked past, recognizing her instinct to bolt.</p>
<p>Lily slid open the door to the Heads’ compartment and was surprised to find James had beat her there. Not only that, but he, James <em>Potter</em>, looked a little nervous. Lily could count the number of times she’d seen him nervous on one hand.</p>
<p>(First year, when McGonagall caught him trying to turn the classroom into a swamp; third year, when Lily carried out her infamous Bat Bogey Hex on him for the first time; fourth year, when he and Sirius had done something that made Remus so angry he hadn’t spoken to them for a week).</p>
<p>Lily decided she liked James Potter a little nervous.</p>
<p>James blurted, “You’re not angry?”</p>
<p>Lily raised her eyebrows innocently, like she didn’t remember screaming herself hoarse at him two years ago. “Why would I be angry?”</p>
<p>“You…” James paused. He looked like he was working very hard to read her mind. “You don’t like me.”</p>
<p>Which stumped her, it really did, because Lily had written to him and his friends all summer; they were brief, sure, and very seldom addressed directly to James, but Lily knew that any letter written to Sirius was as good a letter to James, and she’d written plenty of those – navigating Sirius’ cannonball style of writing to tell him about her summer and her garden, and hearing all about the shenanigans of the summertime Marauders: overtaking lakes, chasing each other through James’ mansion of a house, and a vague injury that Sirius had sustained, but he’d assured Lily that it only made him more handsome.</p>
<p>“I didn’t like you in <em>fifth</em> year,” Lily corrected, and before he could ask, she said, “It’s honestly not that surprising to find you here.”</p>
<p>Now it was James’ eyebrows turn to jump. “Really?”</p>
<p>Lily said, leaning back against the door and smirking, “What better way to get you in line, than this?”</p>
<p>James laughed, reaching up to ruffle his hair, “Suppose that’s as good reason as any.”</p>
<p>They settled in to plan out the meeting. James had very little idea of what was going to happen, but Lily didn’t mind – he hadn’t been a Prefect, hadn’t been privy to the same meetings Lily had been. At the end, Lily slid him a parchment that had been included in her Hogwarts letter.</p>
<p>“I’ll take care of Prefect patrol scheduling,” Lily said, “You can do Quidditch pitch sign-up.”</p>
<p>James’ face broke out into a broad grin, “Oh, I could get used to <em>this</em>.”</p>
<p>She watched him duck his head, hair a mass of curls and kinks and swirls, scribbling Gryffindor into more than half the slots, and she wondered when the hell he’d become <em>James</em> and not Potter.</p>
<p>It was the summer, she thought. Lily always felt softer in the summer.</p>
<p>As Lily settled next to him, she realized that she wasn’t lying – she wasn’t surprised in the least that James had been made Head Boy, and she didn’t think it was about getting him in line. She thought, maybe, it was about this: last year, after that girl had been attacked, after Lily had taken her to the hospital wing and started a fist fight, she’d returned to the common room to find him teaching the first and second years a basic shield charm.</p>
<p>Lily thought he’d been awarded the Head Boy position because, when she’d carried a ridiculous amount of books for a hairbrained scheme, she’d had to do it for twice as long as expected, because he’d checked on each of his teammates after practice, then sent them back to the castle and cleaned the whole pitch himself (and then fell, hook, line, and sinker, for her hairbrained scheme, since it meant <em>helping</em> her).</p>
<p>Lily thought it was because when she’d returned from Christmas break, she’d found a completed puzzle on her bed, because he’d done whatever he’d done to mend the Marauders.</p>
<p>James Potter, perhaps not so secretly, had a heart of gold. <em>That </em>was why he was Head Boy.</p>
<p>Lily smiled at him before the meeting started. She watched his own smile answer, lighting up his whole face, and the entire train car, and probably the whole world, too.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>            It was a rare thing to see a Marauder travelling on his own, especially on the first sleepy Saturday of term, when the Marauder was known to be wreaking havoc in celebration for surviving the first week. The Marauder was a pack animal.</p>
<p>Seeing a Marauder on his own was a bit like spotting a leg hopping around without a body. Lily paused her perusal of the stacks to watch Sirius warily.</p>
<p>Sirens began to wail in her mind the moment she saw Black sauntering into the library alone, because Marauders travelled in packs – even if she couldn’t see them, they were likely to be around – and Sirius Black was in the library. On a Saturday. Either a lot of dung bombs were about to go off, or Black had been hit a bit too hard by a bludger.</p>
<p>Lily watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye as she eased a book off the shelf on top of the one she already held. She opened the cover carefully and skimmed the table of contents. Magical Sticking Charms, Permanence, Level of Mastery… It was a fairly tame list of contents to be in the Restricted Section of the library, which also housed books on murderous curses and histories of genocidal wizards that literally seeped blood. But Lily knew what kind of horror a book like this could cause in the hands of a thirteen-year-old with an affinity for naughty doodles (or something much, much less innocent).</p>
<p>Black waltzed over to Pince and leaned a hand on the desk beside her, smiling charmingly. With a sharp jawline and striking grey eyes, Black was the source of many crushes across Hogwarts. Lily had heard rumors of a fan club, but she was fairly certain Black had started those himself. It would make sense. He was his biggest fan.</p>
<p>But after the events of last November, there was still a sharp concern in her gut at the sight of Sirius alone, a horrible twist she only felt when she found a first year crying for home, or when her cat had gotten so ill in fourth year. The concern left soon after, when she reminded herself that their rupture had been repaired, and Sirius turned away from Madame Pince to fix his eyes on Lily.</p>
<p>She hadn’t been trying to hide. Lily Evans didn’t hide. It was one of her principles. And, besides, she’d learned that once you spotted someone looking for trouble, it was a good idea to look at them, and make sure they knew they’d been seen. It was a trick she’d picked up from McGonagall.</p>
<p>“Alright, Evans?” Sirius asked as he sauntered towards her, drawing eyes from half the library. She wished he hadn’t. Easing the book in her arms shut, she rose an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“What’re you up to, Black?” Lily liked to get to the point. It was the best strategy when dealing with a Marauder, especially this one, who would dance around a point for the sport.</p>
<p>“I’m not the one standing in the Restricted Section,” Sirius said, stopping short of the waist-high gate that separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the library. The short gate didn’t look like much, but Lily had seen several people severely underestimate it, and nurse their regret in the hospital wing for a week. Not because of any particular charms. Pince was terrifying when she wanted to be.</p>
<p>“I’ve got permission,” she said, propping a hand on her hip. Lily made that face that made underclassman quiver. It wasn’t technically a lie. She did have permission to be in the Restricted Section – just the potions section, and not this section, which Muggles would probably have under the umbrella of Home Improvement. But Lily liked to read, and Pince was busy hovering over a group of third years that were threatening to breathe too loudly.</p>
<p>“Lend me the note and I’ll give you a five-minute warning,” Sirius said, flashing her the charming grin that one girl had written on the wall of the toilets made her flood her basement. It was the kind of graffiti that, once spotted, took a lot of effort to get back out.</p>
<p>Lily narrowed her eyes, “Five-minute warning for what, Black?”</p>
<p>Sirius continued grinning, “Well, it might be more of a three-minute warning at this point.”</p>
<p>He still had it mistimed. Because a suddenly wailing filled the air, causing every student in the library to flinch and clamp their hands over their ears, including Black, who had apparently been the cause of it all.</p>
<p>Pince was on him in a moment, practically pouncing, grabbing Sirius by his ear and yanking him towards the exit, her shrill voice still somehow audible over the wailing. As students fled the scene, Lily shoved Slughorn’s book back on the shelf and the other into her bag, then clamped her hands over her ears, making to leave – when the small gate to the Restricted Section flung open before she reached it. The screaming alarm of the Restricted Section blew, but it could barely be heard over whatever the hell Sirius had set off.</p>
<p>Something trod on Lily’s foot.</p>
<p>“Ow,” she bit.</p>
<p>“Sorry!” A familiar voice squeaked, one that was hastily cut off with something that sounded suspiciously like, “Pete!”</p>
<p>Lily eyed the empty air for a moment before she made her decision. She swung around and swept out the exit before Pince could return, book clutched to her chest. The alarm had already been triggered, before Lily left. No one would suspect her.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>As a Prefect, Lily had learned that any kind of cheering in the halls was sure to cause her a headache. As Head Girl, she knew she was going to have to throttle someone before getting that headache.</p>
<p>Rounding the corner, she spotted the group, composed of exactly who she’d expected – Dolohov, Yaxley, and Snape, standing across from Remus and Sirius. She’d just broken up a fight last week. This was getting out of hand.</p>
<p>Except Remus had Sirius by the shirt collar and was hauling him back. Sirius was broader than Remus, but not taller, and besides, Lily was fairly certain Remus could use a pinky to hold Sirius back. Black was a lot less willing to go against him lately.</p>
<p>“Leave it, Sirius,” Remus was saying, while Dolohov continued his taunting. Lily cut her eyes to Dolohov, then Snape behind him. Snape pretended not to see her.</p>
<p>“What’s going on here?” She demanded, in her best Head Girl voice.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, you’re being rescued,” Yaxley sneered, “By your favourite mud-“</p>
<p>“Finish that word and you’ll get detention for a month,” Lily snapped. “Unless you’ve already forgotten due to the number of bludgers you took in the last Gryffindor-Slytherin match, I’m Head Girl, and I don’t tolerate bigotry. No matter how <em>ancient</em> your family’s underwear is, or whatever it is you’re always slobbering about.”</p>
<p>So here was the thing: Lily didn’t really give a shit about Quidditch, and she wasn’t <em>entirely </em>sure he’d actually taken very many bludgers, but he looked angry enough that Lily knew she’d done her job. And she wasn’t entirely sure if she could give a month’s worth of detentions, but – Yaxley seemed worth it.</p>
<p>“Don’t waste your breath on her,” Dolohov said, and Lily looked to Remus, who looked like he was thinking of letting Sirius go. “Let’s leave the blood traitor to the scum he’s chosen. Every good family has to prune the rot.”</p>
<p>Lily watched Remus’ finger slip from Sirius’ collar. But it wasn’t to let Sirius go. It was because Remus was suddenly flying at Dolohov, wand outstretched.</p>
<p>Sometimes she forgot, in all the firework noise and flash of Sirius and James, that Remus was the top in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and he’d been the first in their year to master non-verbal spells.</p>
<p>Lily watched Dolohov soar across the hall. When he sat up, his hands were dashing all over his head, because Remus had turned his hair into a bed of leeches.</p>
<p>“Sirius is not <em>rot</em>,” Remus said, chest heaving, and something in his expression made Lily think <em>oh, shit</em>. And then she looked at him next to Sirius and thought, <em>oh</em>.</p>
<p>Snape swung at Lily.</p>
<p>“Well, <em>Head Girl</em>,” he spat it like it was slime in his mouth, this boy who used to say her name like it was his favourite spell, “What were you saying about a month of detention?”</p>
<p>Lily raised her eyebrows, “I’ve never seen a spell backfire on someone like that before. Dolohov should research his hexes before he uses them.”</p>
<p>Then she walked away, snatching Remus and Sirius by the sleeves of their robes and dragged them along with her. She was still Head Girl, after all. She needed to show <em>some </em>responsibility.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Three weeks into term, the <em>Daily Prophet</em>’s front page advertised looming tensions, and its tenth page, buried deep in the corner, covered the murder of a Muggle family in Scotland.</p>
<p>Lily looked at it and felt a lot of things at once. Rage was the loudest, the kind she knew would cause her to hex the next bigot she saw. It burned like a hearth in the chest, all the way down and into Herbology.</p>
<p>“<em>Lily</em>,” Marlene called her back, pointing her spade at Lily’s work. “Your puffa.”</p>
<p>Lily swore, spotting her pod had started to flower, though she still needed to finish the transplanting. She’d never been particularly talented at Herbology, but she wished she was. Back home, her mother always had a sprawling garden in the summers, and grew plants on nearly every windowsill in the house. It was Petunia that had inherited her green thumb, though she seldom used it. Dirt was too big of a risk for her.</p>
<p>At the end of the class, they all turned in their transplants and swept their stations and Lily’s head returned to the article. <em>What are you going to do</em>? The longer it went on, the question felt bigger. Too big, for one person. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.</p>
<p>She had to head up to the castle for Arithmancy next, so she waved absently to Marlene and Mary, who had free time until lunch. She continued with a group of Hufflepuffs up towards the castle.  Gryffindors always had Herbology with Hufflepuffs while Ravenclaw and Slytherin had Transfiguration. Lily was grateful that their core subjects had never shifted house pairings; it was a lot easier to know when her guard should be up.</p>
<p>Which was why she was completely caught off it when <em>he</em> appeared, hissing her name from between two greenhouses. Lily was tempted to keep walking, to leave him in the dust and ignore him, like he did her. But she was still strangely raw over the experience in the corridor the other day; how he’d said the words <em>Head Girl</em> like it wasn’t something she’d fought for and earned, like she was handed it on account of <em>something</em> – and they both knew what that <em>something </em>was.</p>
<p>“What?” She all but spat it at him. He must’ve skipped Transfiguration to get down here so fast – there was no way he snuck out on McGonagall, and the classroom was on the opposite end of the school. How long had he been standing there, staring in the glass at them? At <em>her</em>?</p>
<p>“Lily…” he said, like he hadn’t even thought of what to say. Like his mind had only gotten as far as ambushing her, and he hadn’t considered beyond that. This nervous, skinny boy was completely different from the boy who’d snapped at her in the corridor the other day. He shrunk, without those bastards he called friends around him.</p>
<p>“What do you want, Snape?” Lily snapped. She watched his eyes dart around, the same way they did all of fifth year, even when they were friends. “Your friends aren’t here. They don’t know how far you’ve lowered yourself to talk to me. So you might as well come out and say it.”</p>
<p>One of the worst things about all this was that she’d <em>known</em>. She’d seen this coming, like some kind of idiot, and just watched it happen. Their relationship had been a hike and a landslide. Lily had watched it crumble towards her. She’d even tried to outrun it. She’d been sure she could. In the end, she was still crushed under the rubble.</p>
<p>“That’s not – “ Snape cut himself off, looking down at her feet, and for a moment she felt a rush of pity for him, his head bowed so she could see his greasy hairline. She remembered him doing the same thing in third year, when he’d asked her to cut all his hair off, after his latest encounter with the Marauders. She was tugged into the memory unwillingly, feeling it overwhelm her as it broke free from the place in her mind where she’d locked Snape and all her memories of him away.</p>
<p><em>“Cut it off!” Sev had begged her, nose running from angry, unshed tears</em>.</p>
<p>Lily remembered being so angry, and so sad, and so uncertain, as she talked him down and tried to gently explain that everyone’s hair got greasy like that, it was just about making sure to sure shampoo every couple days…</p>
<p>Severus had shut down after that, embarrassed and hiding it behind anger. He’d snapped at her, asked if she really thought he’d be that stupid. Lily hadn’t taken it personally. Of course that was common sense to her, and Potter, and Black, because they’d had parents who taught them those things. Even Sirius’ mother, who was a notorious bitch, and Lily Evans didn’t use that word lightly. But Sev’s mom was too busy looking for the bottoms of every bottle she could get to teach her son anything about cleanliness. It left him with the knowledge that he was less and different and shameful that was so debilitating that, once someone did try to teach him those things, he would crumple.</p>
<p>And that was – devastating. It was heartbreaking, to think of that happening, especially to a child. But that child had grown up and chosen friends who wanted to hurt people because of who they were, who wanted to pick on others to make themselves feel bigger. He had grown up to <em>become</em> one of those people, who took low blows and revealed himself with his own telling slip-ups. There was only so much that could be excused, in Lily’s book.</p>
<p>While she reflected, Snape tipped his head up, to watch her with black eyes. He didn’t say anything, or even try.</p>
<p>Movement caught Lily’s eye. She turned to see Peter coming out of the greenhouse – he’d been delayed because his puffapod had unexpectedly bloomed just as he was finishing, petals spilling everywhere. Peter spotted them in return.</p>
<p>Lily looked at Snape one last time before she turned and walked after Peter, grabbing his elbow. “Headed to Arithmancy? Me too. I’ll walk with you.”</p>
<p>Together, they trudged up to the castle. Peter was silent, apparently unsure of what to say, but he kept glancing behind them, like he was trying to make sense of what he’d just seen. Well, if Lily wanted to be mean, she could snap that she was still trying to make sense of why Peter was still in Arithmancy.</p>
<p>She felt all her anger drain out of her. She hadn’t said it out loud, but it was still a mean thing to think. And she’d just kidnapped him to get out of a conversation with Snape.</p>
<p>“What did Professor Sprout say about your puffapod?” Lily asked conversationally, looking over at him. Peter didn’t look like the Marauders, who were all tall and lean and handsome in their own, distinct ways. He was a fair deal shorter than her, and a bit round, but Lily thought it was his own kind of handsome. He wasn’t going to be photographed for any Quidditch magazines, but Lily could see him on the cover of <em>Witch Weekly</em>, in a warm cardigan and holding a cat. The kind of man who wouldn’t sweep you off your feet, but one who would be photographed reading his kids bedtime stories or washing the dishes.</p>
<p>“She said I’d taken such a unique approach, it had caused them to reply in a way she’d never seen before,” Peter said, looking one last time over his shoulder. “I think she was rather impressed, actually.”</p>
<p>Lily smiled kindly. It sounded to Lily that Sprout had been trying to gently tell him he’d made a mistake without hurting his feelings. “That sounds exciting.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Peter said, grinning diagonally.</p>
<p>As they entered the castle and climbed the stairs up to Arithmancy, Lily realized she didn’t really have an idea of how to chat with Peter. With Remus, who’d be the easiest of the four, she’d ask after what he was reading at the moment, or something about their Head Girl and Prefect duties. James would fall for any banter she dangled, and would probably start it himself, actually. Sirius – she would tease him about his smoking, or how long his hair was getting, or exactly <em>why </em>he'd halted his usual playboy ways (that actually <em>was</em> on her list of <em>things-to-corner-people-about</em>; James was also on that list, quite frequently). Peter was different; she felt badly thinking it, but Peter had a lot less… personality? Especially when he was apart from his friends. He would make for a sweet photograph, but not a very good interview.</p>
<p>But there was one thing… one thing she had a few weeks to think about, and still couldn’t puzzle out.</p>
<p>“What were you and James stealing from the Forbidden Section?” She asked casually, as if she was remarking on the weather.</p>
<p>Peter immediately went bright red and started to sputter. The blush clashed poorly with his red tie.</p>
<p>“I – well, I – we were – I mean, we weren’t – you didn’t even see us!” A beat, and then, too late, “Because we weren’t there.”</p>
<p>“When you trod on my foot, I felt your cloak. It was like water. I did a bit of reading – invisibility cloaks are hard to come by,” Lily said, “But it explains a lot of things you’ve done.”</p>
<p>Figuring out about their cloak and clicked a lot of things into place – all the sneaking around at night they’ve had to do, and that time they (allegedly) changed everything green in the Slytherin common room to scarlet and gold. They would’ve needed to be invisible, to creep into the Slytherin common room in broad daylight. That, or Polyjuice potion, which Lily very much doubted those four could keep quiet for so long.</p>
<p>That left the book they’d stolen. But Pince had never submitted a list of stolen books; all were accounted for, apparently, when she finally finished the clean up. Like Lily, they must’ve slipped it back in the chaos that was the library for the next week.</p>
<p>“Come on, Pete,” Lily said, trying for the nickname and speaking in a conspiratorial tone. “I won’t tell anyone. I’m just curious.” She probably wouldn’t, even. It was mostly her curiosity. The Marauders hadn’t been up to much since the library, excepting the usual tussles and hexes no one could definitively pin on them.</p>
<p>Something occurred to Lily. She’d just thought it herself – the Marauders weren’t exactly patient.</p>
<p>“Actually,” Lily said, starting to smile as Peter hastily looked away from her. “Since I’m sure I’ll know about whatever you four are up to soon anyways… where in the earth did you get an invisibility cloak? Did you make it? According to my books, Disillusionment charms tend to fade over the years, and why bother making a cloak if you know the charm anyways?”</p>
<p>Peter’s voice squeaked, “Oh, here’s class - !” He darted away.</p>
<p>Lily wasn’t done, but there were more vulnerable members she could bother for information.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Overnight in October, posters appeared again. This time, the vandal had used some kind spell that needed a potion to remove. Teachers announced the potion needed a day to brew and Lily thought about the way they hadn’t specified the time it would take.</p>
<p>The night after those posters appeared, they were defaced. Painted posters were slathered over those horrifying messages, brightly coloured and overwhelming. The rogue author had painted slogans like <em>LOVE BEFORE WAR</em> and <em>PEACE WILL WIN</em> and <em>HATE WILL NOT BE TOLTERATED</em> and <em>DARE TO STRUGGLE! DARE TO WIN!</em> The paint was enchanted so it flashed was flowers and peace signs and simple doodles of hands being held and arms being linked drew themselves around them, over and over and over again. The paint was a rainbow of shades and there was a telltale kaleidoscope of colour on Lily’s pajamas.</p>
<p>Filch struggled to remove them, as well as every teacher that tried to take them down; permanent sticking charms were a bitch, especially when the only book in the library that could’ve removed them had been mysteriously defaced.</p>
<p>Not that anyone actually tried that hard. The burst of colour on the grey walls of the castle was sudden and defiant, in a time where everything felt darker by the day.</p>
<p>(But it wasn’t enough, it was far from enough. Lily knew that in her heart, knew that posters for peace weren’t an answer to her question. She was stalling, she knew. Because change had to be more drastic than anonymous calls for peace. It had to be bolder.)</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Remus usually wasn’t late for patrol. Lily had seated herself on the stair near the Great Hall, where Prefects and the Heads always met for patrols. She didn’t usually work with Remus, but one of the Hufflepuffs had asked for her patrol night off – it was her birthday – so Lily had done some switching around to accommodate for the one-off, along with the other Prefects’ availability. The easy option would’ve been to pair herself with James, and the Prefects off with each other, but – something about spending two hours, alone, with James Potter, made her very itchy. What in the world would they talk about? Aside from her planned attacked about the cloak, and their usual banter, and classes, and maybe his hair, or – <em>whatever</em>. She and James had reached a fragile detente. She was in no rush to ruin it.</p>
<p>So Lily made everything harder on herself by whipping up a schedule that tended to everyone’s preference, except for her own, and it meant she spent most of her Friday’s taking the odd-shift, which most people avoided. Lucky for her, Remus had volunteered for this Friday shift. Unluckily for her, their patrol started twenty minutes ago, and Remus was nowhere in sight.</p>
<p>She was just about to go up to the Common Room to look for him when Sirius descended the steps, hands stuffed in his robes.</p>
<p>“I’m filling in for Lupin,” he said around the cigarette in his mouth. If he wasn’t a cliché before, he definitely was <em>now</em>, always walking around with that stupid thing in his mouth. “He’s sick.”</p>
<p>“That’s not how it works,” Lily said, automatically. “You can’t just fill in for him, you’re not a Prefect.”</p>
<p>But then she thought about it. She realized what night it was, what shape the moon was up in the sky and here was the thing: she knew. She <em>knew</em>. Since third year, when they’d studied moon phases in Astronomy. She’d <em>known</em>.</p>
<p>She shut her mouth and stood. “Alright,” she said, “We go down to the dungeons and work our way up.”</p>
<p>Sirius booted his cigarette and they went down into the dungeons, where it grew cold enough to see her breath. She’d wished she’d worn her wool stockings, rather than these thinner ones, but she was reluctant to admit winter was coming. She wanted it to stay fall for years and years and years.</p>
<p>“This all you do,” Sirius asked, once they’d gotten back to the ground floor. “Walk around in circles until you freeze your knickers solid?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes we catch people out of bed,” Lily said. <em>Sometimes we find horrible posters advertising terror</em>. “But usually, it’s quiet.” She leaned over and poked him with her elbow. “Usually, we <em>talk</em>.”</p>
<p>“Merlin,” Sirius said, “This isn’t going to be another speech on love, is it?”</p>
<p>Lily rolled her eyes, poking him again with her elbow, a bit harder. Sirius grinned. “<em>Maybe </em>it is,” she said, “Maybe I want to know about your love life. And the sudden lack of it.”</p>
<p>Lily still hadn’t figured out what happened between the Marauders, but maybe it was a girl. Even though it seemed incredibly unlikely, she had to start somewhere.</p>
<p>“I do just fine, thanks, Evans,” Sirius said, mock-offended. Lily grinned at him.</p>
<p>“Come on,” Lily said, “You’ve got your eye on someone, I can tell. You haven’t snogged any of the girls in the dormitory since last year.” She skipped ahead of him, facing him and walking backwards, “<em>I </em>think you’ve got a crush, and don’t know what to do about it, after your slaggy ways.”</p>
<p>Sirius all out stopped, “Are you calling me a slag, Evans?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I just did,” Lily said, giving him her most charming smile. Sirius barked out a laugh, shaking his head at her.</p>
<p>“You’re trouble, you are,” he said, nearly shaking his finger at her. “You don’t look it, and you don’t act it, but you are. I’m onto you, Evans.”</p>
<p>She thought of the crumpled pages in her trunk, ripped from a book stolen from the Restricted Section. There was a mountain of paint bottles under her bed, shrunk to fit into her trunk, then unloaded when the dormitory was empty. She supposed that was fair.</p>
<p>“And <em>you’re </em>avoiding answering me,” Lily said, tucking her shoulder-length hair behind her ears. “Whoever it is,” she said, returning to his side and tilting her head towards him, “You should talk to them. Half the school wants to shag you. I’m sure you’d be fine.”</p>
<p>“Do <em>you </em>want to shag me?”</p>
<p>“<em>Definitely</em> not,” Lily said firmly. She watched him for a moment, and said, “Well?”</p>
<p>“Would you believe I’m playing hard to get,” Sirius said conversationally, but when Lily looked up, he just grinned. Quickly, he said, “Not for you, either, love. I’m not into redheads.”</p>
<p>“Joy to redheads,” Lily said blandly, because he was still avoiding her question. Her face must’ve registered her disappointment, because he waved his hand vaguely.</p>
<p>Sirius swore under his breath, but it was a light one, so Lily was fairly certain it was more for show. “The problem is, he’s not my usual type.”</p>
<p>She caught the careful use of pronoun. She sighed, hugging herself, “Whoever he is, he’s very lucky. I mean, look at you. Being <em>careful</em>, for maybe the first time in your life.” She stopped and said, almost understanding, “He must mean something to you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well,” Sirius said, looking at her, “What about you, Evans? Anyone catch your eye?”</p>
<p>Lily smiled and swallowed the Quidditch-Captain-shaped lump in her throat. “I’m far too busy saving the world.”</p>
<p>Sirius shook his head at her as they came up to one of the outside corridors, one that had a long, wide window. This one overlooked the Quidditch pitch, which was a little eerie, with a carpet of fog at its feet so late into the night. “The first Quidditch match is soon.”</p>
<p>Lily suppressed a groan. <em>Didn’t she know it</em>. James constantly went on about it while she was trying to discuss Head business with him, almost as much as she fielded complaints from other Quidditch captains that James was hogging the pitch. And here was the thing: Lily Evans could give a flying <em>fuck </em>about quidditch.</p>
<p>Of course it was interesting – of course it was mesmerizing, and fascinating, especially as a Muggle-born, when everything about magic was mesmerizing and fascinating. But if she had to hear one more <em>bloody song </em>about quidditch, she was going to commit murder.</p>
<p>“What?” Sirius asked and Lily looked at him, not even realizing her nose was wrinkled.</p>
<p>“Ugh,” she said, dropping her head to the side, “All you boys care about is Quidditch. On and on and on.” Sirius reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarette. “Oh, please, don’t do that right here. The smoke always gives me a headache.”</p>
<p>Sirius smiled wryly but put it away. “Always, or ever since you took the world’s worst drag?”</p>
<p>“Always,” she said, “But that certainly didn’t help matters.”</p>
<p>Sirius chuckled, then looked out onto the pitch. There was something wistful in his expression, and she scolded herself for insensitivity. Gently, Lily glanced over a Sirius and said, “It’s too bad about Horan, though. He’s not suited to beater.”</p>
<p>After last November, Sirius had left the team. Lily had a feeling it wasn’t voluntary, especially since he didn’t rejoin once the fences had been mended. He was looking down on the field with a kind of wistfulness that made Lily feel sorry she’d asked him not to smoke. He looked like he could use it.</p>
<p>“Nah,” Sirius agreed, shaking his head. “But he’s the best they’ve got. Especially if we want to go for the cup this year.”</p>
<p>The Gryffindors had lost half their points on that night in November, and they’d spent the year without coming close to recovering them. They were well out of the running for the cup, distant behind even third-place Slytherin, whose older students had lost all interest in points, when hexing muggle-borns was suddenly so much more entertaining. They didn’t even care about getting caught; in fact, Lily was sure getting <em>caught</em> had become a badge of honor for many Slytherins. Or maybe a public message. For what, she didn’t want to think about.</p>
<p>Everyone had been so preoccupied with Gryffindor’s points, however, that fewer noticed that Slytherin’s had also dropped drastically, that same night in November. Lily had noticed. Lily had wondered.</p>
<p>That was all in the past now, however. Points had been reset, balance had been restored, and houses were bickering over points as usual. Still, having the Marauders in their house was more of a disadvantage than an advantage when it came to points.</p>
<p>Lily bumped his shoulder with hers, the closest she suspected he’d allow her to comfort him. Sirius bumped her back.</p>
<p>“Heard you were interrogating Pete,” Sirius said, and Lily scoffed.</p>
<p>“Yes, that is <em>precisely</em> what I was doing,” she said, “It was a step below waterboarding, it was.”</p>
<p>“What’s water bearding?”</p>
<p>“<em>Boarding</em>,” she waved her hand, “It’s a kind of muggle torture, which simulates drowning. If you’re not careful, I’ll get you too.” Sirius smiled. It wasn’t a grin, either, but a real smile. Lily smiled too.</p>
<p>“What’re you doing here, anyways? If you were supposed to ask me what I learned from Peter, that was a pretty poor effort. Did you draw the short straw to cover for Remus?” She tilted her head at him, “Is it because Sirius <em>Black </em>wanted to hang out with me?” Sirius started to shake his head at her, but he was still smiling. “He <em>did</em>! Well, look at that. Sirius Black thinks I’m fab.”</p>
<p>“I did <em>not </em>say that,” he said, and Lily smiled wider, raising her voice, “Sirius BLACK thinks I’m fab!”</p>
<p>“You’re ridiculous, Evans,” Sirius said. Lily laughed.</p>
<p>“<em>And </em>fab.” She hugged her arms across herself. “Well – what <em>were </em>you trying to steal from the library? And where’d you get that cloak? It’s alright to tell me, we’re mates.”</p>
<p>Sirius laughed, loud and rich and booming, the kind of laughter than came all the way from your chest. “<em>Trying </em>to? Who said we were only <em>trying</em>, Evans?”</p>
<p>Lily hummed, “I’ll figure it out. Just you wait.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>November arrived in a snap of sudden cold, with temperatures dipping and snow swirling around the castle. Being trapped in the castle all over again ran tensions higher. House points plummeted, detentions spiked. Of course, Lily, Head Girl, was completely immune to this.</p>
<p>“It’s too bad,” Avery hissed to Mary in the hall leaving Defence Against the Dark Arts, “Mudblood, with a rack like that.”</p>
<p>The next second, he was dangling from his ankle, his eyebrows growing longer and twisting around each other to form the word <em>WANKER</em>.</p>
<p>So she wasn’t <em>perfect</em>. But she was trying. She was trying and trying and trying, and nothing was enough.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>This was ridiculous. And embarrassing. And ridiculous <em>and </em>embarrassing, but Mary and Marlene were tied up in History of Magic, and Lily was a little concerned, because she was getting lightheaded, and didn’t think waiting the hour it would take for them to get out was in her best interest. Instead, she knocked on the dormitory door that belonged to the Marauders.</p>
<p>She was expecting Remus or Sirius. She was <em>hoping </em>for Remus, because she imagined he’d be rather good at this. Instead, it was James who opened the door.</p>
<p>“Igotbitinclassandineedhelp,” Lily sputtered, cradling her hand to her chest. It was stinging something awful, and she could feel her cloak dampening with her blood. Oh. That was a lot of blood.</p>
<p>James had been grinning when he answered the door, but it lessened a bit when he saw her, “What did you just say?”</p>
<p>“How squeamish are you?” She asked. “Blood-wise.”</p>
<p>“Now you’re scaring me, Lily.”</p>
<p>Well – if he wanted to be scared. She unwrapped the cloak from her hand and showed him what the Kappa’s teeth had done.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want the Kappa to get in trouble, because whenever students are bitten, the Ministry kicks up a sniff and kills the creature, and it wasn’t his fault, it’s mine, I wasn’t paying attention, and it’s just his nature, it wasn’t his fault, or professor’s, so I didn’t want to go to the Hospital Wing, and I figured you lot might have something that can help – “</p>
<p>Wow, she was speaking quickly. Oh. It was panic. Panic because half her palm was missing.</p>
<p>“Calm down,” James said, though he looked very pale. He set the cloak back over her gushing hand and pulled her in the room. “Moony, the kit. I need Dittany.”</p>
<p>Moony, who had been laying back on his bed reading, sat up, looking at her. Sirius was sprawled at the foot of his bed, apparently watching Remus read and fiddling with a quaffle. Lily blinked at them. Sirius sat up, shoved his hair out of his face.</p>
<p>“You’re usually pale, Evans, but you’re almost translucent.”</p>
<p>“Spell translucent,” Lily replied, but it was weak.</p>
<p>James set her on one of the empty beds, holding the cloak to her hand firmly. Lily’s heart felt like it was beating very quickly.</p>
<p>“Where’s Peter?” She asked, realizing the final Marauder wasn’t present, and thinking about a foot hopping around on its own.</p>
<p>“Detention with McGonagall,” James said. Lily watched Remus and Sirius haul a large trunk out from under Remus’ bed and set it on top, opening it. She could see healing potions and bandages and scissors and dozens of bottles, neatly labelled. It made her a little nervous, that these four boys kept this on hand. That they had a reason to.</p>
<p>“Hey,” James said, dipping himself in her line of sight. “You want to know how Pete got detention?” Lily felt herself nod slightly, though even that made her head swim. Her cloak was soaked under her hand. Just how much blood was in the human body, again? The lack of a biology class on their timetable felt glaring, all the sudden.</p>
<p>James said, “Pete forgot about McGonagall’s homework. When she walked up to collect it, he panicked and set off a dung bomb, right in front of her. Classic Pete.” James was grinning, though it was strained. Lily tried to grin too. His hands were big and reassuring on hers. She knew he was just holding the makeshift bandage in place, but it was almost nice, having his hands cradle hers.</p>
<p>“He should’ve just copied Lupin’s, like I did,” Sirius said.</p>
<p>“Here,” Remus said, walking across the room quickly. He twisted the top off the bottle and James took it, looking at her again.</p>
<p>“I’m going to lift this and put it on. It’s Dittany. You know what Dittany is, right?” Lily nodded, feeling shaky. “Course you do, you’re brilliant. You borrow stacks of books from Slughorn for fun. Okay, it’s going to sting.” Remus helped him remove the cloak and James immediately started dripping the Dittany on her wound, which she felt sting and sizzle as it slowly closed, all the way from her fingers to her wrist. She shut her eyes and tried not to imagine her skin burning and healing, twisting around itself, growing at an unnatural rate.</p>
<p>“That’s all,” James said after a minute, touching her palm. She opened her eyes. It looked like several days of scabs had formed over it, skin still pink and sensitive. “Good job.”</p>
<p>It kind of hit Lily at once, seeing how her hand was supposed to look, and thinking how it <em>had </em>looked, just a few minutes ago. She sighed, tilted her head up and blinked back sudden tears. “Okay,” she said, “That was a little scary.”</p>
<p>“A little?” Sirius asked, looking over James’ shoulder with his arms crossed, “Your hand looked like it’d been gored by a Hippogriff, not a bloody Kappa.”</p>
<p>“Padfoot,” Remus said, gently.</p>
<p>Lily smiled tightly, “Mating season. They were testy.” Then she dipped her chin at the trunk on Remus’ bed, “And don’t tell me you’re prepared for a war because that’s the <em>worst </em>thing you’ve seen. <em>Sirius</em> has probably bitten all you lot worse than that.”</p>
<p>Sirius said, “She’s feeling better. She’s being a git again.” But he was smiling. Lily flipped him off with her good hand.</p>
<p>“A <em>right</em> git, actually,” Lily said, and James snorted.</p>
<p>“Are you feeling weak?” Remus asked with concern, “Or dizzy?”</p>
<p>She tested her fingers, opening them and closing them again. Everything seemed to be in working order, aside from the tight pull of her skin, and the throbbing headache that was accompanying the light-headedness.</p>
<p>“I’m okay. Thank you very much,” she said, “I’ve got Charms homework to do.” She tried to stand up, but James’ hands were on her shoulders, keeping her down.</p>
<p>“No way,” James said, “You need sugar. And fluids. That cloak is soaked.”</p>
<p>“I’ll run down to the kitchens,” Remus said. “Get something for you to eat. Stay there.”</p>
<p>“I’ll go too,” Sirius said, standing. As he left, he winked at Lily, and it was strangely comforting.</p>
<p>She was left with James in the empty dormitory. She was sitting on what she was pretty sure was his bed, and he was kneeling in front of her, looking like she was something precious. And that wasn’t fair. No one should every look at anyone like that. That was just <em>unfair</em>, because it made Lily open her big mouth.</p>
<p>“You want to know the real reason I didn’t want to go to the hospital wing?” Lily asked him quietly, looking down at her hand, still curled in her lap. She glanced up quick enough to see he was still watching her steadily, which she took as encouragement.</p>
<p>“Everyone,” she said carefully, “Is waiting for me to show weakness. Ever since those posters started going up. I’m the most vocal muggle-born in the school and the second they smell blood in the water…”</p>
<p>“Nothing is going to happen to you, Lily,” James cut in. She couldn’t meet his eye. James was heroic and chivalrous, and part of that was believing in the very best case scenario at all times. And she admired that. Lily was an optimist herself, but she was also a muggle-born in a world built for people who hated her.</p>
<p>“Maybe not here,” she said quietly. “Maybe nothing serious. Not yet. But we both know those posters aren’t just posters. They’re a symbol of a growing mindset. One that wants people like me dead.”</p>
<p>There was something so horrifying about saying it out loud that she wanted to curl into herself. But there was something else, too. Sometimes giving the monster a shape made it scarier. But sometimes giving the monster a shape made you realize what it was: a group of pathetic, hateful people. And Lily knew how to fight hate.</p>
<p>James was looking at her. When she managed to meet his eye, she could see him thinking, trying to pull together what he wanted to say.</p>
<p>“I grew up with magic,” James said carefully. “But nothing – <em>nothing</em> has ever come close to you. It’s not your spellwork or your potions, even though that’s impressive, too. It’s how you believe in yourself and others <em>so much</em>. I’ll always bet on you, Evans.” Then he smiled slowly. “It doesn’t hurt that you’re absolutely barking mad. I mean, what did you do? Stick your hand in the Kappa tank? We studied those things in <em>third</em>, for Merlin’s sake.”</p>
<p>Lily pressed back at smile and stared at his shirt collar, because his face was a little too much right now. “I thought it was hurt.” She looked at him and said, “Like you haven’t been attacked by a lot of strange things in your day. Look at that bloody trunk, who <em>has </em>that? You probably run through the Forbidden Forest for fun.”</p>
<p>James snorted, “You have no idea.”</p>
<p>This was familiar territory – far more comfortable than the earnest, heartfelt thing that had passed between them a moment ago. But no one had given James’ face the memo that they were onto banter. It was still a little too earnest for Lily’s comfort. She felt the childish need to out-earnest him.</p>
<p>“This is why you’re Head Boy, James Potter,” she said, lightly tapping the pin on his chest. “You secretly have a very big heart. Under all that pompous big-headedness.”</p>
<p>James laughed. He looked at her for a moment, and Lily wouldn’t mind if he looked at her like that forever. He opened his mouth to say something, but the door burst open, admitting Remus, with a tray of orange juice and nuts and bread, and then Sirius, holding an entire ham with a nasty grin.</p>
<p>“I’m not eating an entire ham,” she told him.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sirius said, “<em>You </em>aren’t.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Lily’s posters lasted a month before they were defaced. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but the shocked anger was almost too much to control. She saw red the moment she saw them splattered with that <em>horrible </em>slur.</p>
<p>She ripped back to the Restricted Section, reusing her initial note. She shuffled through the stacks furiously, more obviously than she should’ve, but she couldn’t help it. She was roiling with rage, ripping through books and skimming spell after spell until she found it – exactly what she’d been looking for.</p>
<p>Now, repeating alongside the question was James’ voice, <em>I’ll always bet on you, Evans</em>. She was going to bet on herself, too.</p>
<p>The spell was a tricky, thing, however. She was barely sleeping at night, anyways, so she’d spent her nights trying to figure it out, sneaking down to a room on the fourth floor so no one heard.</p>
<p>Lily looked at the poster in front of her, one she’d been using for practice. It was on the desk in front of her and she was standing a few feet back, wand outstretched.</p>
<p>She took a breath, concentrated, and struck her wand in a zig-zag she’d been practicing for hours. The paper bounced up, fluttered, and sat back down on the table, otherwise unchanged. She sighed, blowing her messy bangs from her face.</p>
<p>Footsteps against the stone of the corridor made her look to the door. For some reason, she remembered Sirius, at the top of the astronomy tower. <em>You shouldn’t be out alone at night. It’s not safe</em>. He wouldn’t say the same thing to James, or Peter, or Remus, for a very good reason.</p>
<p>Lily tightened her scrunchie and went for the door, wand out – and ran straight into James. He looked tired and dishevelled and was shoving a chunk of parchment in his pocket.</p>
<p>“Lily,” he said, “What are you doing out so late? And <em>alone</em>?”</p>
<p>“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied, fighting the urge to put her hands on her hips and shove her nose in his face.</p>
<p>“I was looking for you,” James said, taking her wrist, “You-Know-Who’s fan club is looking for whoever keeps defacing their posters.”</p>
<p>“Why do you think it’s me?” Lily asked, like she wasn’t standing in a room full of posters she’d just been practicing on. She’d meant to make them bite whoever tried to deface them, modelling them after a book she saw in the Restricted Section, but she couldn’t quite figure it out.</p>
<p>James smiled at her, despite his rushed look. “Evans, all the posters are about <em>love</em>.” He waved his wand at the room and the practice posters formed a stack and shoved themselves under a desk in the back, then he tugged her into the hall after him, still holding her wrist.</p>
<p>James’ <em>impossibly </em>long legs made such strides that Lily had a job of keeping up, his hand still around her wrist. “How’d you know where to find me? And how’d you know they were looking for me? And who is it, anyways? Yaxley? Dolohov? Avery?” She had half a mind to find them, to give them the fight they were looking for.</p>
<p>“You ask a lot of questions for someone being rescued,” James said, which made Lily try to dig her heels into the ground. Damn those stupid muscles and long legs.</p>
<p>“<em>Rescue</em>?” She said incredulously, “I don’t need to be <em>rescued</em>, I’m doing just <em>fine, </em>thank you – “</p>
<p>James released her hand when they reached the top of the staircases. He took the parchment out of his pocket, muttering, and Lily watched with wonder as ink swirled across the page, spotting a line of text as it appeared on the front.</p>
<p><em>Mr. Prongs would thank Ms. Evans for her interest, and request she keep her annoying but endearing insistence on knowing everything to herself, just this once </em>–</p>
<p>“What is that,” she said, jabbing her finger forward and ignoring the message. James blocked her finger with his forearm as he flipped the page over, revealing a map that was moving and breathing, and Lily realized it was the castle, with moving footprints and text making up walls and staircases, tracking shifting staircases and Filch was there, over by the Astronomy Tower, and Mrs. Norris too! A magic map! It was almost enough to distract her from the way his arm felt through his sweater.</p>
<p>“Where did you find this?” Lily asked, curling her hand around his wrist to pull it closer to her, forgetting her indignation for a moment.</p>
<p>“They’re coming this way,” James said, right when voices could be heard down the stairs.</p>
<p>“<em>Nox</em>,” they said together, plunging them in darkness. She turned to face the voices, wand out. But then James grabbed her again and tugged her backwards, into an alcove occupied by a knight and it struck Lily as very un-James-like, to hide instead of fight. She had half a mind to voice this opinion, but the voices became clearer, and Lily realized who she was listening to.</p>
<p>“No one can master that spell on the first try,” Snape drawled, sounding arrogant and bored with it. “It would make far more sense to stake out the library and see where they’re getting the information to perform these spells, than wander the castle at night.”</p>
<p>“You’re just scared it’s going to turn out to be that bitch Evans,” Yaxley’s voice, snapping cruelly.</p>
<p>“You really think she’s capable of keeping this quiet?” Snape said, “She never resists a chance to brag, like with all those ridiculous muggle objects she flaunts around.” Lily realized she was holding James’ arms just about the elbow, and she could feel him tense. She herself felt annoyance roll through her. She did not <em>flaunt</em> –</p>
<p>“I agree with Snape,” Dolohov’s deep, gravelly voice. “I think it’s Macdonald. She’s coward enough to do this in the dark. Or that blood traitor Ravenclaw, the one who’s been giving Rook all the trouble. Personally, I hope we catch Macdonald tonight. I’ve always wanted to use the Imperius – “</p>
<p>She nearly lunged out, then, but then Snape spoke, and her heart bottomed out.</p>
<p>“Not in school,” Snape snapped, “You know our orders. Calling attention to ourselves is not in the Dark Lord’s interest.”</p>
<p>All the air left her body. It was like when she’d gotten bitten, and her body was drained, exhausted, and it shouldn’t have been, it <em>shouldn’t have been</em>, but – this was the boy who’d held out a flower to her and told her that she was magic. This was the boy that stood by her when her own <em>sister </em>wouldn’t.</p>
<p>It was Fifth year all over again, but worse. The Dark Lord – the coward’s way of not saying his name, of avoiding saying the name of the maniac who wanted people like her dead, simply by virtue of who she was. Voldemort. She wanted to scream his name. She wanted to look him in the eye and show him what <em>love</em> could do.</p>
<p>“Lily,” James breathed, bringing her back, like an anchor. She looked up at him. The voices were gone. They’d moved on. “We need to get back to the Common Room, okay?”</p>
<p>She barely remembered moving. The next thing she knew she was on the couch in front of the fire, legs folded, a blanket that didn’t belong to her draped around her shoulders.</p>
<p>Posters weren’t going to solve this. It all seemed so juvenile, now. There was something real, now, about the threat at Hogwarts, which had already felt unflinchingly real. How could that be? How could something that <em>feels</em> real get worse like that?</p>
<p>Snape was a Death Eater, along with those other <em>boys</em>. Those other boys that were pretending to be men, pretending to be <em>right</em>. And not two <em>months</em> ago, Snape had the <em>gall</em> to go to her outside of Herbology, to try to talk about <em>what</em>? How he was a monstrous bigot? How he’d chosen his side, once and for all?</p>
<p>“Lily,” James said, drawing her from her mental whirlpool. He reached over and set his hand on hers in her lap, and she curled her hands around it automatically. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>She didn’t know why he was apologizing. He was right. Nothing would’ve gone well for her if she’d tried to attack those three in the night, especially when they were itching to use an Unforgivable. She was too young for this. She was too young to be dragged into this. She wanted more time.</p>
<p>Lily looked into the fire and held his hand tightly, “They think it’s other people,” she said, “Other people are in danger because of me.”</p>
<p>“Because of <em>them</em>,” James said, “No one is responsible for what they do.”</p>
<p>Lily knew he was right. But she also knew it was time to take credit for her work. She looked at James, scrunchie flopping behind her.</p>
<p>“How does that map work?”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Lily stopped her posters, terrified of the consequences for her friends. She hated quitting because of fear, but she wouldn’t risk her friends. She hated knowing that she couldn’t use the library to find her answers, because Snape was right – most muggle-borns wouldn’t have access to any other sources of information, not like that. It was the Purebloods that would have home libraries and friends they could write to. Lily was stuck at a dead end, and she didn’t know how to escape it.</p>
<p>She went home for Christmas, one last time. Petunia and Vernon were gone at their new home, and they’d invited her mother for Christmas dinner.</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Lily reassured her mother as she left in the early afternoon, to make the drive, “I wanted you for Christmas morning. Everyone knows that’s the best part, anyways.” She was smiling, genuinely, when she saw her off, but the moment she shut the front door, the house, which just moments ago had been warm and cheery, felt cold and empty.</p>
<p>Petunia’s invitation hadn’t explicitly disallowed Lily, but it didn’t mention her at all, which was an indication enough of what Tuney wanted. Lily tried not to think of it.</p>
<p>She turned on Christmas carols and sang along with them, cleaning up the dishes leftovers from breakfast, and turned on every light in the house, so it felt lived-in. In the quiet, it was easier for the sickness in her stomach to creep up, which had been there since she heard Snape, and their plans.</p>
<p>As it got dark, Lily sat in the living room with hot chocolate and thought of her mother, all alone in this big house. Anyone could knock on the front door at anytime. Anyone could come in.</p>
<p>Snape had <em>been </em>to this house. He had met her mother. He’d know she was all alone, the mother of the girl causing trouble for him and his friends. Lily didn’t want to believe it – she didn’t want to believe he’d come for the woman who had made the couch into a bed whenever he needed it, who made sure he always had dinner, who bought him good shoes, ones that fit, every summer because his own mother wouldn’t. But after that night, Lily wouldn’t put anything past him.</p>
<p>She went outside, forgoing her coat and wearing her mother’s old winter boots, the big ones she wore when she took the bus and had to be standing out in the cold for ages. In the dark of the street, she felt safe enough to lift her hand and her wand and began. “<em>Protego maxima</em>.<em> Fianto duri</em>.” She cut her wand diagonally, “<em>Salvio hexia. Protego totalum…</em>”</p>
<p>She stood there, arms gently outstretched and whispering, until her fingers were numb with cold. Lily looked at her home, every light on, emitting a cheery glow, but through a strange haze, like a wave of heat was coming off it. Or an invisible barrier.</p>
<p>Lily stood and looked at her childhood home and felt overwhelmed and overgrown, like somehow, she no longer fit inside it. Then she planted one foot steadily and used the other to turn, dropping her eyes shut and thinking of another house, away in Little Whinging.</p>
<p>She gasped a lungful of breath when she once again could, opening her eyes to see a home she’d only seen in photographs. In the front window, past a lace curtain, she could see her sister, tall and rail-thin, offering her mother tea from a platter.</p>
<p>But this street had more eyes than the one in Cokeworth did. She raised her wand and twirled it around herself, as if tying herself in a rope, and felt the cool, wrapping sensation that came with a disillusionment charm. Then she spread her arms and started again.</p>
<p>“<em>Protego maxima. Fianto duri. Salvio hexia</em>…”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://clytemnestrad.tumblr.com/post/617424644556947456/arandellet-hogwarts-yearbook-lily-evans-and">this</a> is my favourite jily fanart in the world</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. part iii</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's... pretty cheesy.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I need a favour,” Lily announced, standing in the doorway of the Marauder’s train compartment, and they all groaned. She pointed at James, “From you.”</p>
<p>James managed to look delighted and exasperated all at once. She wouldn’t be upset if she saw that face, oh, every day for the rest of her life.</p>
<p>“My condolences,” Remus said wryly.</p>
<p>“I’ll get you a nice gravestone, mate,” Sirius said apologetically. Peter giggled like it was the funniest thing in the world. He abruptly stopped, however, when Lily continued.</p>
<p>“I want to borrow your magic map.”</p>
<p>The boys exchanged a look and then, Remus and Sirius, who were closest, each took a wrist and pulled her entirely into the compartment, letting the door slide shut behind them.</p>
<p>James cocked an eyebrow, “Who says it’s <em>my </em>magic map?”</p>
<p>“You were the one who showed it to me,” she said, and when three pairs of eyes swung to James, she added, “Unintentionally. Accidentally. While stopping a pack of Death Eaters from mauling me in the middle of a night.”</p>
<p>The boys all looked at one another, having one of those silent conversations they’d mastered sometime around third year. Lily squinted, trying to read them.</p>
<p>“Say we <em>do</em> have a magic map,” Sirius said.</p>
<p>“Which you do,” Lily cut in.</p>
<p>“What would you give us in return for its use?” Sirius continued like she hadn’t spoken at all.</p>
<p>Lily smiled, “My darling company.”</p>
<p>The boys exchanged a look.</p>
<p>“Because if you don’t, I’ll bother you every day for the rest of our Hogwarts careers,” Lily said. James, for one, didn’t seem to think it was such a severe punishment. Sirius planted an elbow in his ribs and he sat up.</p>
<p>“Deal,” James said, holding out his hand to shake. As soon as Lily had grasped it, he said, “And you’re taking me with you.”</p>
<p>“Fair enough.”</p>
<p>She’d decided to strike the night of their return, when everyone would be full and maybe a little tipsy from the welcome feast. At midnight, she dragged James from the Common Room and down to the dungeons.</p>
<p>“I thought you’d be going after the library,” James said, watching the map.</p>
<p>“That’s what Snape thinks, too,” Lily said. She looked at James, “But I think it’s time I play to my strengths.”</p>
<p>They reached the Potions classroom and Lily tapped the door, “<em>Alohamora</em>.”</p>
<p>The door swung open and they shut it quickly behind them, relocking it. James checked the map again.</p>
<p>“Couple Slytherins just left the Common Room,” he said, “It’s a sixth year couple, though. Probably looking for some alone time.” James smiled and waggled his eyebrows. Lily rolled her eyes and walked across the room, opening the extra Potions stores. It was suddenly boiling down in the dungeons; Lily’s face felt like it was on fire.</p>
<p>She showed James a list of ingredients, “I need all this.”</p>
<p>James looked at the list, “You probably could’ve gotten all this in Diagon Alley. Maybe some in Knockturn Alley.”</p>
<p>Probably. But James was the son of an ancient wizarding family, and Lily was a daughter of a middle-class muggle family. <em>James </em>probably could’ve gotten it all in Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. The rules were different for her.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lily said instead, leaning her head on the cabinet door and smiling, “But this is <em>far </em>more fun.”</p>
<p>They gathered everything up, stowing it in Lily’s bag, and checked the map again before they went back out into the corridor. Lily took the list back from James as they climbed the stairs to the tower, and he asked, “What’s all this for, anyways?”</p>
<p>“Oh, too late,” Lily said, tucking the list away, “Should’ve asked while I still needed your help.”</p>
<p>James grinned, “I’m guessing I’ll know soon enough, anyways.”</p>
<p>Lily hummed innocently. “Probably.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Lily hadn’t been to the hospital wing often in her Hogwarts career. A couple times for a pepper-up potion, and once for her insomnia, but nothing like this. Never like this. </p>
<p>And this – this was why she <em>hated</em> fucking Quidditch, the stupid, ridiculous sport.</p>
<p>The one time she actually went to a match, she had to watch Potter fall from his broom fifty feet in the air all for a <em>ball</em>. The stupid, <em>ridiculous</em> boy.</p>
<p>The team was clumped outside of the hospital wing, integrated with the Marauders. Sirius was chain-smoking, giving Lily a headache, and Remus was standing with his arm against him in a way that reminded Lily a lot of holding someone’s hand. Peter was steadily making his way through a bag of Honeydukes' best with the team.</p>
<p>Lily, feeling like the odd one out, stood a little apart from them, leaned against the wall on her own. Mary and Marlene had brought her to the corridor, but there was already such a pack of people there, Lily had sent them off. Now she was regretting her decision, wishing she had someone to talk to, to get her mind off whatever was happening with that bloody Potter boy on the other side of the door and – oh. Bloody. Lily shut her eyes and tried not to picture it.</p>
<p>Yaxley had hit him in the head with a bludger from behind. Lily had heard that he’d already been kicked off the team, but she wasn’t sure how reliable that information was, since she’d gotten it from a Gryffindor. She had a nasty feeling that he was going to get away with it, as his parents were on the Hogwarts parent council, and they’d throw a riot if their son was booted from the team.</p>
<p>“He’d got a hard head,” Remus said. “He’ll be okay.” Lily opened her eyes to see the Marauder was looking at her. Sirius was still leaned up against Remus, and Peter was munching on a Honeydukes chocolate bar, a piece broken off and offered to her.</p>
<p>Lily smiled and took the chocolate, “I’m sorry for cornering you.”</p>
<p>Peter shrugged, “Happens more often than you’d think.” It made Lily’s heart break, the matter-of-fact way he’d said it. She would’ve followed up, if Sirius didn’t speak.</p>
<p>“This isn’t nearly as bad as that time in Third,” Sirius said, “When we had that shite Seeker and Prongs went after the snitch himself? Flew straight into the stands.”</p>
<p>“Or first, when Prongs tried for the team and flew straight through the broom shed?” Remus added.</p>
<p>Lily watched the door open. The Marauders moved first, still moving like they hadn't a care in the world, but somehow at the front of the pack. Following was the team, and then Lily, feeling like she didn’t quite fit in here.</p>
<p>Through the crowd of people, Lily could hear Pomfrey having a conniption, ranting about the limited number of visitors, and Lily stepped aside as the filthy players were chased out, tracking mud as Pomfrey clucked like a chicken at them. Lily slipped by and stepped around the curtain of the bed on the end, finding the Marauders still standing there. James was in the bed, head wound in bandages with wild curls poking through any gaps. It gave the appearance of an octopus trying to escape a cage, and almost made Lily smile.</p>
<p>“Careful,” Remus said, “He’s loopy.”</p>
<p>“He’d know, since he’s <em>Lu</em>pin,” Sirius said. Remus shook his head while Peter groaned. </p>
<p>“Don’t tell me you’re back on <em>puns</em>,” Peter whined.</p>
<p>“Poor effort,” Remus said, “Worst yet, maybe.”</p>
<p>James sat up as she’d entered and Sirius, sitting on his bedside table, shoved him back automatically. “Lily flower!” He said, as excited as a golden retriever. “I’m going to have a scar.”</p>
<p>“Chicks dig scars,” Sirius said. He jerked his head at Remus. “Look at Lupin. All you’ll need is an endless supply of cardigans and you’ve got the quiet-library types on lock.”</p>
<p>“Is that true, Lily flower?” James asked. <em>Merlin</em>, she was going to enjoy bothering him about <em>that </em>one.</p>
<p>Just because he was hyped up on medication, and she wasn’t sure he would remember it, “Not just the quiet-library types.” She reached forward and smoothed the curls on his forehead back and said, “You big, stupid idiot with your big, stupid sport.”</p>
<p>James smiled wide. “But we won, right?”</p>
<p>They hadn’t, but the four of them all nodded and smiled.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Valentine’s Day rolled in, and since they had Potions right before the Sixth-Years, Slughorn had Amortentia sitting on his side table, ready for their lesson. It smelled like snickerdoodles and rain and grass and dirt and somehow, for some reason, a stupid sport played in the air. Lily tried not to think too hard about it.</p>
<p>As they worked on their Snickering Serums, Lily was thinking about love, and what a nice day Valentine’s was, and how meddling would be a great way to celebrate.</p>
<p>She wandered over to the table the Marauders occupied, all of them at the simmering stage except for Sirius, who had procrastinated until the last moment, and was now enduring heckling from the others.</p>
<p>“James,” Lily said, hands on her hips, “My potion isn’t quite right, I was wondering if you could come help me?”</p>
<p>Back at her desk, James stirred her potion and peered at it, “It looks perfect to me, Evans. What, you losing your potions prodigy touch?”</p>
<p>“I’d better go ask Peter,” Lily said, “Wait here.” And she ignored the suspicious narrowing of James’ eyes following her back to their table while she retrieved Peter with the same line. Once he got back to her table with Peter, he examined her potion.</p>
<p>“Did you add the Snarluff eggs?” Peter asked, grabbing a handful despite the recipe only calling for two, and dropping them in without waiting for an answer. Her potion went from a cheerful yellow to a cement grey. Lily beamed.</p>
<p>“<em>Excellent</em> thinking, Peter,” she said, prodding it with her ladle, “This’ll probably take us the rest of class to sort out.”</p>
<p>“<em>Us?</em>” James asked, and Lily smiled innocently.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said pointedly, “<em>Us</em>.”</p>
<p>While they flipped through their textbooks, looking for a solution to the rapidly-thickening potion, Lily snuck a glance over at Sirius and Remus, still working on Sirius’ potion. Remus was pushing Sirius back from the cauldron by his head, loudly exclaiming that he’d never seen someone go so wrong but smirking all the while.</p>
<p>She nudged James, looking over at Sirius and Remus, “Are they flirting? They’re flirting, aren’t they? That’s how boys flirt, right?”</p>
<p>James looked at her, “Merlin, Evans, you just can’t help yourself, can you?” But it wasn’t exasperated. It sounded more fond.</p>
<p>“I think we should have lunch outside today,” Lily said, ignoring him, “You, me, and Pete. It’ll be lovely.” She checked the clock, “And I think we should slip out a few minutes early. For no particular reason.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Lils,” James said, stretching his arm around her and shaking his head. “You’re lucky I like you enough to outweigh your schemes.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lily said boldly, with a big smile, because it was Valentine’s Day, and she loved Valentine’s Day. “I am very lucky.”</p>
<p>James choked on his spit. It was better than any romantic gesture she could think of. Except, you know, snogging.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>There were times when Lily still felt like a teenaged girl, not like a young woman mentally preparing for war, not like she knew she would have to fight and protect – like she was just a teenaged girl who had a favourite band and thought about dating and her biggest concern was her next essay due.</p>
<p>“BUT I’M A WITCH, BABY!” Lily shout-sang with Mary and Marlene, jumping on her bed with them, hands clasped. Broomless’ newest record was full of dance music, music that made Lily want to sing and laugh and giggle with her friends to.</p>
<p>Marlene let go of their hands to continue jumping, pointing her fingers in every direction. Mary held tight to Lily, a brush appearing in her other hand as she sang carelessly into it, hair flying in every direction.</p>
<p>She wanted this moment forever. She wanted more of this, of letting her love overflow into these girls, of this careless, wonderful freedom, of the safety she found in these women.</p>
<p>The relationship between women was one that couldn’t be copied or expected anywhere else; it was a bond tighter than magic, made of the oldest wonder they had. These girls cheered with her when she did well on her latest Transfiguration essay, and sat up with her when she’d asked, and they had hexed those that had tried to hurt her, and bandaged her, too. These girls had taught her about love, above all else.</p>
<p>She was wrong before, <em>so</em> wrong before, when she’d thought she would trade them for Sev – she could never go back to the quiet after this, after the roar of these girls. It would be like taking away the sounds of the ocean, or the breath of the castle. She could never live in the quiet again.</p>
<p>This moment kept giving itself to her, long after it had finished: it would be the first thing she thought of, the next time she needed to summon her Patronus.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>It took a week of fiddling with the potion in secret, cooking it on her windowsill while her roommates were in lessons and stirring it late at night in the loo. But she’d finally accomplished it, and had dipped three rounds of posters in them, leaving each to dry in a sunny spot. Once they were dry, you couldn’t tell they’d been wet at all. And then she plastered the castle with them, including the last hall to the dungeons.</p>
<p>There was no rush to take them down, no mutiny formed on their basis. Only one thing changed, aside from the walls suddenly being coloured brightly with hopeful sayings (<em>DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!</em>). Dolohov was mysteriously absent from classes for three days. When he returned, stomping into dinner in the Great Hall, a ripple of quiet passed through the room, eyes fixing themselves to plates and hands cupping around mouths. Because Dolohov’s face was covered in a dozen poorly-healed boils, each contributing to bold letters that spelled out the word “bigot”. The word was too small to read from over at the Gryffindor table, but Lily knew what it spelled out, anyways.</p>
<p>That part – making it spell the specific word – had been especially tricky. She was quite proud of how it turned out. Lily was just absolutely brilliant, and she was going to bask in it for a moment.</p>
<p>Dolohov more slammed than sat at the table, his friends silent and grim around him. He was scanning the Gryffindor table. Lily waited patiently for him to find her, chin on her fist. She sent him a cute little finger wave. The rest of his face went as red as the boils.</p>
<p>James, who was sitting across from her, looked over his shoulder. He spit out his shepherd’s pie.</p>
<p>“Is that an acne hex?” Remus asked conversationally, next to her and looking at Dolohov too.</p>
<p>“A variation,” Lily said, “I got the idea from your chest of potions. What if there was something that <em>caused</em> boils, rather than took them away.”</p>
<p>“If he holds that spoon any tighter, he’s going to break it,” Peter said, sounding delighted.</p>
<p>“Evans,” James said, and she broke her eye contact with Dolohov to look at him. He was smiling. “You are terrifying.”</p>
<p>“You have shepherd’s pie on your shirt,” she told him. Her toes curled in her shoes.</p>
<p>The castle buzzed and, within the hour, she felt eyes following her, fingers pointing at her. <em>It was Evans, Lily Evans, the Head Girl, the Gryffindor, the Seventh Year, the </em>Muggle Born. Lily didn’t confirm anything to anyone, not even Mary and Marlene, who returned from their lunchtime walk with more of the Hogwarts gossip highway in their mouths.</p>
<p>McGonagall called her to her office after Transfiguration and asked if Lily had anything she wanted to share.</p>
<p>“I’ve been thinking of getting a haircut,” Lily said conversationally, pinning the ends of her hair between two fingers. “What do you think? Just a trim.”</p>
<p>McGonagall sighed and set a box of biscuits in front of her. But then she said, “You be careful, Ms. Evans. They don’t play fairly.”</p>
<p>“Boils doesn’t seem very fair to me,” Lily replied. McGonagall pursed her lips.</p>
<p>“Will they go away?”</p>
<p>“You’d be better suited to ask the person responsible,” Lily said. McGonagall stared at her for a moment longer, and Lily said, “Eventually, they will. I think.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>For the next week, Lily found herself with the strangest set of bodyguards she could’ve asked for. And it wasn’t even that she <em>had </em>them – it was more the fact that they were trying so <em>hard</em> to be casual about it, especially since she hung out with these people <em>anyways</em>.</p>
<p>Marlene had formed an alliance with the Marauders, and together, they were ensuring that Lily and Mary didn’t go anywhere by themselves. Which Lily appreciated, she did, but they couldn’t protect her forever. And she was fairly certain she’d proven she could take care of herself, if Dolohov’s face was any indication.</p>
<p>It was why she’d parked herself in the window in one of the quieter corridors to read on her spare period. She loved her friends, she really did, but she was looking forward to some quiet time.</p>
<p>It lasted approximately ten minutes.</p>
<p>Sirius announced his arrival by entering the hall at a sprint, stopping and sliding a good five feet in his socks. “Have you ever noticed just how slippery this hallway is?”</p>
<p>Lily watched him with interest when he stood and ran again. He skidded an impressive distance across the hall.</p>
<p>She toed off her own shoes and dropped her cloak. “You’re doing it wrong.”</p>
<p>She pulled her socks up over her knees and went to the end of the hall, then sprinted, ending in a slide that went feet farther than Sirius’.</p>
<p>“Cheater,” Sirius accused, “You’ve got those girl socks on.”</p>
<p>And that was how Lily ended up unrolling her socks and handing them over to Sirius, who, admittedly, <em>did </em>slide much further with them on. Lily accio’d another pair from her dormitory and they came soaring through the window, pelted the wall like a bullet.</p>
<p>They slid through the halls for a while, Lily in her new socks and Sirius stretching out hers, his pants rolled to his knees. She erupted into giggles when he tried sliding on his knees and nearly broke both of them, and he shook his head at her when she beat his distance, marked out with their shoes.</p>
<p>Lily asked, “Don’t you have a class to be in? Divination? I thought you were due for a death re-enactment.”</p>
<p>Sirius shrugged. “Lost track of time. Didn’t feel like going to class anyways.”</p>
<p>Lily didn’t need to ask how he’d found her. She narrowed her eyes at him. “I like using the map but I don’t like having it used against me.”</p>
<p>Sirius grinned, “You get used to it.”</p>
<p>Then he took off at a sprint, making a truly magnificent distance, and Lily couldn’t just let him <em>win</em>.</p>
<p>They mistimed their next slides, both of them running at once, both going slightly crooked and bashing into one another so they hit the floor, laughing and swearing through the laughing. When it died down enough for them to sit up, Lily propped herself on her elbows and smiled. She poked him with her toe. “Tell me about Remus.”</p>
<p>Sirius rolled his eyes and, inexplicably, went <em>pink</em>. Sirius Black did not go <em>pink</em>. “Bloody hell,” he said.</p>
<p>“C’mon,” Lily said, “He’s obviously your mystery crush. What was it? His sweater vests? His love of reading? His kindness?”</p>
<p>“You sound like <em>you’re </em>in love with him, Evans.”</p>
<p>“We all know who I’m bloody in love with,” Lily said, the words just popping out. Both of them were quiet for a moment, and Lily wished she could’ve had more time to enjoy her stumping of Sirius Black. It wasn’t often <em>he </em>didn’t know what to say.</p>
<p>“If <em>that’s</em> fair game – “</p>
<p>“It bloody well is not,” Lily blurted, “We were talking about you and Remus and what I can do to help.”</p>
<p>“Evans, I don’t want or <em>need </em>your help.”</p>
<p>“Well you’re going to get it either way. It may be less painful if <em>you </em>direct things.”</p>
<p>Sirius thought it over for a moment. He sighed.</p>
<p>“What were you thinking?”</p>
<p>Lily poked him again. “Tell him how you feel.”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“Because I don’t <em>want to</em>.”</p>
<p>“Alright. I can tell him.”</p>
<p>”<em>That’s worse</em>.”</p>
<p>“Alright, alright,” Lily said, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, let me think…. Why don’t I get the other two out of the dorm for a bit?”</p>
<p>“And how are you going to do that, exactly?”</p>
<p>Lily looked at him. “It’s James and Peter. They’ll come if I lure them with a biscuit.”</p>
<p>“Fair enough,” Sirius said. He sighed, “Alright. But only because I know you won’t shut up about it.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>In Defence, Dolohov said something about needing spells for the <em>cleansing</em>, and Lily jabbed her muggle clicking-pen so hard into one of his boils that it squirted everywhere and she got detention for a week, because of course, Professor Mallick didn’t hear Dolohov.</p>
<p>She was pleasantly surprised when James waltzed into detention with her, served under Slughorn, who trusted her so much he’d decided she didn’t need him for the mountain of cauldrons he left for her to polish. Even with James there, too.</p>
<p>Once Slughorn left, Lily asked James what he’d done to get detention.</p>
<p>James shrugged from his spot on the floor, “Nothing in particular. I figured I deserved it for <em>something</em>, though.”</p>
<p>It made her laugh so hard she had to lean against the absolute monster of a cauldron she was polishing, watching his grin get wider and more crooked with every breath.</p>
<p>“You’re a nutter, James Potter,” Lily said, when she finally had control of herself.</p>
<p>“<em>I’m </em>a nutter?” James was incredulous, “<em>You</em> gave Dolohov a bunch of boils and popped one with your <em>pen</em>.” Lily grinned.</p>
<p>“Alright,” she said, “What’s something you might’ve deserved detention for?”</p>
<p>James sat back against the cabinet, crossing his arms and thinking. “I… don’t know, actually. I haven’t gotten in a fight since that one with you, last year.”</p>
<p>Lily smiled a little at him, “You’re growing up, Potter.”</p>
<p>“Take that back,” James said immediately, pointing at her. But she wasn’t feeling playful and giggly anymore. Because he was right.</p>
<p>She walked over to him and sat next to him, and it felt normal to sit with him, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and knee to knee.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” she confided. “Hexing one person isn’t going to win this.”</p>
<p>James leaned his shoulder a little more against her, “I stopped fighting because it wasn’t doing anything,” he said, “Except making me feel better, for a split second. And hexing in the halls is the same. But… you’re doing something different, I think. Usually, you’re not hexing Yaxley because he glared at you or because he’s a Slytherin… I mean, today was an exception, but Dolohov had it coming, and I didn’t really mind Dolohov’s boil getting blown up, even though I got hit by boil-juice.”</p>
<p>“I <em>said </em>I was sorry!”</p>
<p>“You’re not letting them run without consequence. You’re showing everyone that they’re extreme. And you’re literally writing on their faces what they are.” James sounded so <em>sure.</em> “It might not be how we win. But it’s a start.”</p>
<p>She sighed and tilted her head onto his shoulder. He was right but he also wasn’t. Fighting accomplished nothing, but maybe – maybe it was necessary, in its own way. Dolohov had certainly shut up when he was choking on his own boil juice. Fighting was brash and violence only begot violence but – but he couldn’t be allowed to run without consequence.</p>
<p>Lily shut her eyes, wishing they could stay in this dingy room and not think about anything else ever again. His shoulder was warm under her cheek and his should moved only with his breath, up and down in a soft lullaby.</p>
<p>She remembered Sirius. <em>If </em>that’s<em> fair game </em>–</p>
<p>She opened her eyes again.</p>
<p>“Slughorn left us our wands,” Lily said after a moment, “What do you say we clean these and go for a walk?”</p>
<p>She couldn’t see his face, because her head was leaned against his shoulder. But she could<em> feel </em>his smile, as he lifted his wand and set the rags to working on all the cauldrons at once.</p>
<p>They tiptoed out of the dungeons and went out to the grounds, where it was cool but not cold, and fog hung low around their ankles. Hogwarts’ night-face was out in full-force and Lily revelled in it, in the way the windows seemed to glow like eyes against the night, and the way every breeze seemed to whisper secrets. She walked backwards, looking at the castle, holding James’ elbow so she wouldn’t fall.</p>
<p>They talked about everything and nothing. James told her about his parents and how he missed his mother’s cooking more than anything when he came to school, missed her butter chicken and rogan josh and malai kofta. Lily told him she missed her sister, but not the sister she had now, the sister who used to push her on the swings, and who told her to always look before she crossed the street, and who always held her hand in crowded shops. He told her that he used to want to play quidditch, but now he wasn’t sure. She told him about her sleep.</p>
<p>“You just wake up?” James asked, sprawled in the middle of the Quidditch pitch. She’d never met someone with so many limbs, all spread out in every direction. She was standing at the bottom of the hoops, looking straight up, almost dizzy. They flew that high on <em>purpose</em>. It made her stomach hurt.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lily said. “In the middle of a thought. Like I’d never been asleep at all.” She didn’t tell him that, increasingly, the thought was about him.</p>
<p>“What do you do?” James asked, “Being awake all night?”</p>
<p>She turned around and looked at him, raising her eyebrow. He smirked. “Right. Vandalism.”</p>
<p>Lily thought about it, “I prefer to think of it as protest.”</p>
<p>“Rebellion.”</p>
<p>“Exactly.”</p>
<p>He told her about moving Sirius out of his house, what it was like to steal what they could while the Blacks were out, and set it up in James’ home; what it was like to live with his best friend like a brother, how much he’d always wanted a sibling growing up, but his parents would joke they could barely handle <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>“I’ve never actually been on the pitch before,” she told him, wandering back to him and sitting next to him but facing him, hip to hip. “I’ve never realized how big it is before.”</p>
<p>“Feels even bigger on a broom,” James told her, looking up. He was leaned back on his hands, looking into the sky.</p>
<p>“I hate heights,” Lily told him. James smirked again.</p>
<p>“I remember,” James said, “When you accidentally flew up to the top of the broom shed in first year? And refused to come down? Professor Hinton had to go up and get you while you cursed at everyone who laughed.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t cursing at <em>everyone</em>.”</p>
<p>“You flew down with the three-finger salute and got detention for a week.”</p>
<p>“Which was a joke,” Lily said. “Two detentions, <em>maybe</em>. I should’ve cursed more. Made it worth it.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t you also tell Lyle Knight to shove his broom up his arse for laughing?” It was so dark she could barely see him, but she still knew he was a breath away from laughing.</p>
<p>“That was unrelated,” Lily said, “Lyle Knight could still stand to shove a broom up his arse.”</p>
<p>James reached up and messed his hair again, the way he always did, one of those things she <em>might </em>think about, late at night when she couldn’t sleep.</p>
<p>“How’s your head?” She asked, and next thing she knew she threaded her fingers into his hair and felt for the bump but couldn’t find it, and they bickered good-naturedly like that, with her hands in his hair and his hands light on her hips, forgetting about Slughorn, forgetting about Death Eaters, and talking about nothing and everything at once.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>The day after Mary’s birthday, Lily woke up in James Potter’s bed with a tremendous, horrible hangover. Mary and Marlene were a bed away from her in Remus’, which had been deemed cleanest. Remus and Sirius were sharing Sirius’ bed (<em>would you look at that</em>) and Peter was in his own bed, on the far side of the room. James was on the floor.</p>
<p>Lily woke up because Mary was sprinting to the bathroom to vomit, and Marlene was singing to drown out the sound, while everyone else begged Marlene to stop singing and oh – there went Reggie, Mary’s boyfriend, who Lily had forgotten had come, since he’d been out so early in the night, after challenging Sirius to a chugging contest. He rushed after his girlfriend and shut the door, either to help her or throw up himself.</p>
<p>Peter groaned loudly on the end and Sirius threw his pillow at Marlene, who had stopped singing, and so retaliated, leaving Remus to try to retreat under the blanket, but Sirius was hogging them all. Lily retreated back into the blankets after Reggie went for the bathroom, only opened her eyes again at the pillow-throwing. She met James’ eyes on the floor, where he was grinning. Lily grinned back, even though the movement felt like it was going to split her skull open.</p>
<p>Lily ducked back under the covers, which smelled like <em>James, James, James</em>, her eyes impossibly heavy. She was just about to go back to sleep, despite the arguing, feeling warm and safe – when a record scratch flung through her mind and her eyes snapped open. She poked her head out of the sheets and looked at James.</p>
<p>“We’re heads.”</p>
<p>“Well spotted, Evans.”</p>
<p>“We need to go to class.”</p>
<p>“No, we don’t, love,” he said it easily, still sleep-soft on the edges. It made Lily blush up to the roots of her hair. “Go back to sleep.”</p>
<p>“James.”</p>
<p>“Lily.”</p>
<p>“<em>James</em>. <em>Jaaaames</em>. It’s Wednesday. James, we’re supposed to be a good example.”</p>
<p>“Be a better example to not show up to class than show up hungover.”</p>
<p>Sirius chimed in, voice muffled, “Go be a good example somewhere else.” His face was pressed against Remus’ chest, Remus’ hand on the back of his head. Lily would bother them about it later, when her head stopped pounding. Half-consciously, she pointed at it, like she wanted to file it away in her memory in doing so.</p>
<p>“James,” Lily said, but his name was half-drowned out, because he was groaning, shoving himself off the floor and going to Sirius and Remus, ripping the blankets off the two of them.</p>
<p>Lily kept the blankets over her head, face poking out, while she watched James poke Marlene out of bed, and full-on shove Peter, then go back to Sirius and shove him out of bed too. Then he came for her.</p>
<p>“This is your fault,” he said, and then he grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her out of his bed.</p>
<p>Lily ate an entire plate of toast and bacon, but she felt sick and foggy all the way to Transfiguration, where she realized she’d forgotten to put on a tie. James took his off and slid it over her head, tightening it carefully, tucking it under her collar.</p>
<p>They moved through classes in a murky haze. James threw pieces of parchment at her head like they were twelve again, so Lily charmed a doodle of him flexing his muscles, except his muscles deflated into noodles when he did. She slept through Potions leaned on Remus’ shoulder, and promised herself no more Firewhiskey ever.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>James disappeared the night before the Quidditch final. Lily was sitting in the Common Room when Sirius came to tell her, past curfew, leaned on the back of the couch.</p>
<p>“You know where he is?” Lily asked him.</p>
<p>“And I don’t even have the map,” Sirius nodded. “But I thought <em>you </em>would want to go talk to him.” Lily raised her eyebrows and Sirius leaned in, “You’re not the only one who can meddle.”</p>
<p>He messed up her hair and she flipped him off. Then she stood up and left, on a completely different errand that Black and Potter had nothing to do with, thank you very much.</p>
<p>She didn’t go to the pitch. She didn’t go to the Great Hall, or the Transfiguration classroom. She went to the library, because that was the last place anyone would look for James Potter.</p>
<p>He was hidden in the back shelves, sitting on the floor, long legs stretched out in front of him. Lily leaned against a shelf and looked down at him, smoking on the floor.</p>
<p>“Smoking is very bad for you,” she said. He smiled at her and put out the cigarette on the stone floor. She could tell his hand was shaking before he crossed his arms and tucked them away.</p>
<p>“Big day tomorrow,” Lily said and James shrugged, not saying anything, looking somewhere in the vicinity of the tops of her knee socks.</p>
<p>“Nice socks,” he said.</p>
<p>“You mean legs,” Lily responded. James gave her a tiny grin.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he said, looking at her legs again, “I do.” Then he looked up at her again.</p>
<p>Lily sat down next to him. Shoulder to shoulder. Hip to hip. Thigh to thigh.</p>
<p>“You know that book of fairy tales you gave me?” She asked, deciding once again that she was going to sacrifice a secret, for the greater good. “I read it anytime I can’t sleep. It reminds me of you.”</p>
<p>James let out a deep breath, like he’d been running for weeks. He leaned against her, “What’s your favourite?”</p>
<p>“<em>Babbity Rabbity</em>. Definitely.” She could feel his smile again. James’ smiles always moved in warm waves around him, like feeling direct sunlight on her skin.</p>
<p>“Everyone knows that <em>The Fountain of Fair Fortune </em>is the best one.”</p>
<p>“No <em>way</em>.”</p>
<p>“It has the perfect ending!”</p>
<p>“Of <em>course</em> it does, it’s a fairy tale,” Lily shook her head, “Babbity doesn’t <em>stumble</em> on all her solutions, she’s clever enough to get out of it herself.”</p>
<p>James shook his head at her. Before he could continue, however, Lily spoke again. “You’re going to do well tomorrow.”</p>
<p>James reached out a finger and traced the top line of her sock. “Promise?”</p>
<p>“Cross my heart.”</p>
<p>He let out another breath, his finger, warm and callused, pausing on her knee. Then James lurched forward, groaning dramatically, and got up to his feet. He turned around and offered her a hand. “Alright, Evans,” he said, “Need a full night’s sleep before I kick Hufflepuff arse tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Lily grinned and took his hand, letting her haul him up. She said, “Maybe I’ll even read you a bedtime story.” James went pink, looking at his shoes, and Lily felt a rush of uncertainty. She hadn’t exactly been indiscreet. She wasn’t the most subtle flirt. Maybe… maybe she wasn’t what James wanted, anymore.</p>
<p>She smiled up at him as they left the library, but her stomach was tightening in a knot.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Lily could give honestly give a fuck about Quidditch. At least she could through her sixth year. And most of her seventh year. But then she went to the finals, and she sort of… got it.</p>
<p>It didn’t hurt that it filled the Common Room with streamers and noise, indoor fireworks, and students singing house songs all at different times, joy overflowing like from them like water from James’ fountain.</p>
<p>Lily was pouring herself some Firewhiskey from a collection of bottles, ignoring her broken promise by watching Remus walk up to her, reaching for a full bottle.</p>
<p>“Don’t tell James,” Remus said lowly, like she could <em>find</em> that sweaty, ridiculous boy in this crowd, “Sirius is upset.”</p>
<p>Lily hummed, looking over her shoulder. She could see him laughing at the dormitory stairs with the Quidditch keeper, patting her on the shoulder with a broad smile. “He’s upset he didn’t get to play.”</p>
<p>Remus nodded, changing his mind on the bottle and putting it back. Lily shook her head, “You had the right idea. Bring this,” she put it in his hand, “And go talk to him. Dormitory should be empty.”</p>
<p>“Pete is doing a striptease on the table over there,” Remus said, pointing. Lily decided not to look.</p>
<p>“I’ll make sure he doesn’t break his skull,” Lily promised, “And I’ll keep an eye out for the other one.” And hopefully ignore that awful feeling in her stomach that he may be off celebrating <em>privately</em> – with someone else.</p>
<p>She prodded him towards Sirius, “Take care of your friend. I’ll watch out for the other two.”</p>
<p>Remus kissed her cheek quickly in thanks before he turned, going for Sirius. Sirius’s smile got bigger as he threw his arms up and shouted, “MOOOONY!” But Lily could almost see what Remus had – the plastic at the edges, the unnatural squint. Remus hooked his arm into Sirius’ and pulled him up the stairs to the dormitory.</p>
<p>She watched them for a moment, saw Sirius leaning into Remus like it was the most natural thing in the world, and saw Remus lean back just as easily. Somewhere along the way, their hands linked. It felt like witnessing something far more intimate than any of the times she’d walked in on Sirius snogging one person or another.</p>
<p>Lily glanced over at Peter – doing just fine, by the looks of it, and turned, heading back to her girls. Mary was sprawled out with her head in Marlene’s lap, giggling madly. Marlene was laughing too, head tilted back on the couch.</p>
<p>When Mary saw her, Mary lurched up, holding out her hands, “LILY! You’re not drunk enough yet.” Lily sat between them, opening the bottle she’d flinched from the table.</p>
<p>“I agree,” Lily said, and took a swig. She held up five fingers. “Never have I ever had a girlfriend or a boyfriend.”</p>
<p>Both Mary and Marlene groaned, and took a drink. Marlene was next.</p>
<p>“Never have I ever snuck out of bed after curfew.”</p>
<p>Lily and Mary took a drink, the former calling Marlene a liar when she didn’t. Marlene just grinned.</p>
<p>Lily was down to two fingers when James lurched into view, hair in every direction, glasses slightly askew.</p>
<p>“Lily and Mary and Marlene,” he announced, standing in front of them, “I’m drunk!”</p>
<p>Mary erupted into giggles, draping herself over the edge of the couch. Marlene saluted him with her cup and took a drink. James sat in front of Lily, somewhat clumsy, looking up at her.</p>
<p>“Hello Lily,” he said, smiling and swaying a bit, even on his knees. “You look lovely.”</p>
<p>Lily was already flushed from the alcohol and the warm common room and, honestly, her natural skin tone was probably <em>flushed</em>, but she felt her skin grow even warmer at James’ earnest eyes and dopey grin.</p>
<p>Marlene groaned, hauling herself up on her feet. “Come on, Mare. They’re gonna flirt and Pete needs a rescue.” Lily felt herself flush further and looked to see Peter standing on the sill of the window.</p>
<p>“We’re not – “ Lily started weakly, but they were already gone. She sighed and looked back down at James, who was still kneeled in front of her, looking up at her.</p>
<p>“Congratulations,” she told him. James smiled wider.</p>
<p>“Did you like the game?”</p>
<p>Lily could honestly give a fuck about Quidditch… previously. But now? After watching James fly through the air, swinging by his hands at one point, soaring past the stands and pointing at her every time he scored… And <em>now</em>? With James looking at her like <em>that</em>? Had he always looked at her like that? Well, maybe <em>could</em> give a fuck about Quidditch. But, like, Quidditch. Nothing else.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I did,” she said, and James beamed.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>“Sirius, please,” Remus was saying down the house table bench from Lily, sitting down far enough to be polite, because she was holding a book, but close enough she could join them if she wanted. Close enough she could overhear them, too.</p>
<p>“It’s a good thing you have a library card,” Sirius was saying, leaned over the table towards Remus. “Cause,” he leaned even closer, “I’m <em>totally </em>checking you out.”</p>
<p>Remus’ ears were dark red, his neck flushed. “That doesn’t make <em>sense</em>. You should ask about a… barcode, or a… card catalog.” He finished it weakly, and Sirius’ grin only grew.</p>
<p>For all Remus’ protesting, he didn’t seem to really <em>mind</em>. He opened his own book, burying his nose in it. Sirius leaned back in his car with a grin.</p>
<p>“Did you just fart,” Sirius asked, “Because you’re <em>blowing me away</em>.”</p>
<p>“Lily,” Remus said, standing and shuffling towards her, “Lily, help.” Sirius smirked after him, looking stupidly love-struck. Lily hid her snickers in her book.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>That week felt like a high – winning the cup, Sirius and Remus becoming <em>Sirius and Remus</em>, and James, James looking at her like that, James leaning all over her while she coaxed breakfast into him the next, hungover morning – it felt like a high, which was why its end was so disorienting.</p>
<p>There was an absolute rock in her stomach. Lily thought of the day Sirius had pelted Remus with pick-up lines, which grew steadily worse as the day went on, and tried to alleviate some of the horror that was clogging up her throat. She tried to think of dancing to Broomless with her friends, or James, just James doing whatever James Potter was wont to do. But nothing was working. Nothing could ease the boulder in her stomach.</p>
<p>The <em>Daily Prophet’s </em>headline wasn’t even <em>new </em>– that was the worst part. It advertised the outcome of the latest international Quidditch game. And, on page six, hidden in the bottom right corner, right by the page fold, was an advertisement for a family of missing muggles, with an address to Owl with information of their whereabouts. The column was tiny, the author familiar; Jay Gentile had been writing these columns for months, dutifully reporting the missing and murdered muggles, despite her tiny and ill-placed columns. Some days, Lily would look up in the Great Hall and see students still laughing, pouring pumpkin juice on each other and screwing around, not even aware that this was the fifth family to disappear this month, that people were being murdered and dumped for sport.</p>
<p>Some days, Lily felt like she was the only one who noticed. Who <em>cared</em>. And she wondered when it would be her turn to be in the <em>Prophet</em>, tucked away in its moving pages, given nothing but still, small letters.</p>
<p>Lily left the breakfast table with the rest of the students off to their first classes but didn’t head up to class. Instead, she went straight for the library. Her hands were shaking, and she didn’t know if it was because she was sad or furious.</p>
<p>The library was quiet, so the books were easy to come by. The halls near-silent now that classes had started, so going to the main quad without being seen had been simple. The disillusionment charm she cast was the same as the one she’d used on Privet Drive and, when that first class finished, and the next, and the next, and the next, no one could see what she was doing. Not until she was done.</p>
<p>Well into the afternoon, Lily lifted the charm and sat back, looking at what she’d done. It was a while before a low whistle sounded behind her.</p>
<p>Sirius had his wand between his fingers, absently swishing it. Lily looked away from him and back at what she’d done.</p>
<p>“Missed you in class,” Sirius drawled, “Well, that was mostly James. He would’ve gotten here sooner, if not for the whole <em>snit</em> he got into, but…” Sirius waved the parchment. “Saw you were up to something. And this is… something, Evans.”</p>
<p>The <em>something </em>was a set of statues – ones she’d gathered from throughout the castle, who hadn’t minded when she’d asked to change them a bit. Now they weren’t statues of Wenda the Wild and Norfolk the Nervous – now they weren’t wizards and witches at all. Muggles stood before them, a group of them, holding hands and staring, defiantly, into the courtyard.</p>
<p><em>WE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN</em>. Then, <em>WE WILL REMEMBER</em>. It was written across their arms, tracing the link between them. Lily looked at it again, at the stone dust she was covered with from all the carving spells, and felt her energy drain out of her. She sunk to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and looked up at them. On each of their chests, she’d written <em>MUGGLE</em>.</p>
<p>There were names, too, carved all over them: the names of the muggles who’d gone missing or were murdered, tucked into the back pages of the <em>Prophet</em>. Not <em>worthy </em>of anything more. Now they were made of stone, bold and prominent, so they couldn’t be missed.</p>
<p>She was crying, she realized. It was something she’d been idly aware of for a while now, but now she had a roaring headache to go along with it.</p>
<p>Sirius sighed. He sat beside her, spreading his legs out in front of him.</p>
<p>“That night,” he started, looking at the statue. “When you were going on and on about love and how it was going to save us? When you made that speech, I got it. You’re right, and I got it, too.”</p>
<p>Lily was quiet. Se asked, “Got what?”</p>
<p>Sirius bumped his shoulder against hers. “Why James is so bloody in love with you. Mind, I’m not, so don’t go getting a big head about it, because that’d be like dating my sister. But for that minute, I got it. You’re a real wonder, Evans. And I believe you. Love’s gonna save us in the end.”</p>
<p>Tears slipped from her eyes, and she was almost distracted from the roaring that started in her ears when Sirius mentioned James, and that he –</p>
<p>Lily looked back at the memorial. It wasn’t enough. She would do more. But it was a start.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>She replaced the charm on the statues until nightfall, when she lifted it again. Hogwarts woke to the memorial, half-blocking the entrance to the entrance hall. No one could miss it. The eyes of the muggle statues bore into anyone who passed.</p>
<p>Lily had added more overnight, including bunches of white roses charmed to never die. Lilies and petunias, too, trailed around the feet of the statues, holding every tiny <em>Prophet </em>article she could find, charmed to last in rain and snow. But more contributions were made.</p>
<p>The first day, a young Hufflepuff, a third-year muggle-born, added a picture of her family, who had been found dead the year before. A Ravenclaw boy added candles to float around the statues, so they were always in light. And then there were the flowers: baby’s breath and white lilacs and tulips and flowered Mandrakes and gillyweed sprouts and a dozen others. Muggle and magic flowers, twinning and twining in a way that made Lily choke on her own tears, the first time she’d seen them.</p>
<p>There was hope. There was <em>love</em>. Love was going to win. It was always going to win.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>It was a regular Tuesday, and they were skiving off from Herbology to avoid the pus-inducing Poison Willow, hiding in his dormitory, of all places, because people would figure that James Potter was far better at hiding than <em>that</em>. They sat at the head of his bed, hip to hip, knee to knee, piles of Chocolate Frog wrappers littered around them, laughing about a joke Lily couldn’t even remember when the words, which had rung in her head like bells for a week now, toppled out.</p>
<p>“Sirius says you’re in love with me,” she said, her humor draining from her like energy. James continued to smile down at her, but it was softer than before.</p>
<p>“That’s not <em>news, </em>is it?”</p>
<p>“It is to me,” she said quietly. Her eyes dropped to his lips on their own accord. “I’ve got news too, then.”</p>
<p>James smiled and Lily swore that, when he did, even light in the world went on at once.</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>Dumbledore’s office hadn’t changed since she was last in it. Lily wasn’t sure what she was expecting; a lifetime’s span of change, probably, since that was what it felt like she’d experienced since she’d last been here.</p>
<p>He’d found her at her memorial and asked her to come for tea. Lily wasn’t expecting discipline; after all, not one teacher had touched the memorial, and it was no secret she’d created it. Sprout had tucked her hair behind her ear and called her brave; Slughorn had warned her to be careful. A few days after the memorial’s erection, McGonagall had asked her to stay back and called her powerful before she’d enveloped her in a hug. McGonagall had always seemed so strong. The action had made her knees weak.</p>
<p>Lily had figured it would be a matter of time before Dumbledore called her to his office. He brought in the tea and they sat in quiet for some time. Lily watched Fawkes on his stand, blinking at her with kind eyes.</p>
<p>“Someone needs to do something, Professor,” Lily said finally. She looked at him and repeated her refrain: “It’s not enough.”</p>
<p>Dumbledore nodded sagely, looking back at her. “I agree.”</p>
<p>Lily said, “We need to organize.”</p>
<p>Dumbledore’s smile was soft, “Are you telling me, Ms. Evans? Or asking me?”</p>
<p>Lily smiled a little at him, but hers was Gryffindor-sharp. “I could do it, Professor. I could start something.”</p>
<p>“I have no doubts about that, Ms. Evans. But there is no need to reinvent an existing spell,” Dumbledore said. Lily watched him carefully. “Ms. Evans, I can’t say I would be able to support a witch who is still completing her schooling in this pursuit. But someone who has graduated, who no longer has the trace – that is someone I have a proposition for.”</p>
<p>:::</p>
<p>For Lily Evans, July was always a new beginning. It was the end of school but the real start of summer, when days were at their longest, and nights were warm and open.</p>
<p>The letter came on one of those nights, when she was sprawled in the grass with her head on James’ stomach, slowly moving with his breath. The address was written in midnight blue ink, and there was a simple message on it, written above a date and place of meeting.</p>
<p>
  <em>THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX</em>
</p>
<p>One would arrive for James the next day, and Sirius, and Peter and Remus, and Marlene and Mary, and dozens of others, a hand extended for a knot of trustworthy, brave, and loving individuals.</p>
<p>The question that had repeated in her head, over and over and over again, for <em>years</em>, was finally quiet.</p>
<p><em>What are you going to do</em>?</p>
<p>This. This. <em>This.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments and kudos are love xxx</p></blockquote></div></div>
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